UC-NRLF 


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CHARLES     DICKENS 

(1812-1870) 


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CHARLES  DICKENS 

BY 

ALBERT  KEIM  and  LOUIS  LUMET 

Translated  from  the  French  by 

FREDERIC  TABER  COOPER 

PFITH  HEFEN  ILLUSTRATIONS  FROM  PHOTOGRAPHS 


NEW  YORK 

FREDERICK  A.  STOKES   COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


Copyright,  1914,  by 
FREDERICK  A.  STOKES  COMPANY 

AU  rights  reserved 


April,  1914 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER    I 

PAGE 

First  Dreams  and  First  Nightmares — A 
Child's  Soul — The  Joys  of  Poverty — 
Mr.  Johx  Dickens-Mica wber  —  Little 
Charles-Davy 1 

CHAPTER    II 

Office-boy.  Reporter,  Stenographer — The  Psy- 
chology OF  A  Sentimental  History — 
The  Best  Friend  of  Charles  Dickens, 
Whose  Name  Is  Boz 33 

CHAPTER   III 

In  Which  We  Meet  the  Fantastic  Person- 
age OF  Mr.  Pickwick — The  Romance  of 
A  Novelist — Victory  and  Moltining — 
Some  Literary  Pirates      ....        71 

CHAPTER   IV 

Types  and  Manners — The  Kindness  of  a 
Clown — The  Thousand  and  One  Nights 
OF  London  and  England — Mr.  Swivel- 
ler's  Grandiloquence  —  Mr.  Q  u  i  l  p 
Screams  with  Laughter — Little  Nell 
Passes  Away      .,,,..        95 


S30926 


vi  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER   V 

PAGE 

The  History  of  a  Raven — The  Small  Adven- 
tures OF  a  Great  Englishman  in  Great 
America — Old  England  in  Italy  and  on 
the  Lake  of  Geneva — Dombey  Is  a  Bal- 
ZACIAN  Type — On  the  Stage  and  the 
Lecture  Platform 125 

CHAPTER    VI 

The  Magic  Lantern — Look,  There  Is  Uncle 
Pumblechook! — Mr.  Dick  Flies  Kites 
— Rags,  Bottles,  for  Sale! — Poor  Jo 
Tries  to  Take  French  Leave — My 
Lords  and  Gentlemen!      ....      163 

CHAPTER   VII 

The  Art  of  Government,  according  to  Dick- 
ens— Twenty  Years  After — A  Deli- 
cate Subject — The  Chase  after  Dol- 
lars— Readings  from  Pickwick,  Dom- 
bey AND  Son,  etc 199 

CHAPTER   VIII 

Charles  Dickens,  Esq.,  of  Gad's  Hill,  Eng- 
land— The  Magician  in  Solitude — The 
Tomb  of  a  Bird — After  the  Centenary, 
THE  Apotheosis 219 


THE  PHOTOGRAPHS   IN   THIS   VOLUME  ABE   BT  HABLIXOUB» 
UNDERWOOD   AND   UNDERWOOD,   ETC, 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


CHARLES  DICKENS     ....     Frontispiece 

FACING 
PAGE 

DICKENS  AT  DIFFERENT  AGES 

Above:  "Boz"  (his  pseudonym  at  the  out- 
set) at  the  ag-e  of  twenty-three,  from  the 
portrait  by  Lawrence. — At  the  age  of 
thirty-four,  from  a  miniature  by  Margaret 
Gillie.  Below  :  In  1856,  from  a  portrait  by 
Frith. — In  1845,  in  the  rôle  of  Captain 
Bobadil,  from  the  portrait  by  C.  R.  Leslie  .         22 

HOUSES  MADE  FAMOUS  BY  DICKENS 

Above:  Dickens's  birthplace,  in  the  poorer 
quarter  of  Portsea. — Doughty  Street,  his 
residence  from  1837  to  1840,  where  the  cele- 
brated Pickwick  Papers  were  written.  Be- 
low: "The  Old  Curiosity  Shop,"  which  he 
immortalized  in  the  novel  of  the  same  name         54 

MRS.  CHARLES  DICKENS 

On  the  2d  of  April,  1836,  Dickens  married 
Catherine  Hogarth,  by  whom  he  had  ten 
children.  She  was  the  daughter  of  the  man- 
aging editor  of  the  Evening  Chronicle  .         .         86 


viii  ILLUSTRATIONS 

FAaNG 
PAGB 

ILLUSTRATIONS  FROM   THE  WORKS   OF 
DICKENS 
Above:  Pickwick  Papers,  "The  Valentine." 
— Below:  Nicholas  Nicklehy,  "The  internal 
economy  of  Dotheboys  Hall"       .         .         .       118 

ILLUSTRATIONS  FROM   THE  WORKS   OF 
DICKENS 

Two  scenes  from  Bleak  H  on  se  :  Above: 
"The  Dancing  ^QhooV— Below  :  "Mr.  Gup- 
py's    Entertainment" 150 

BUST  OF  DICKENS 

This  work  by  the  sculptor  Taft,  executed  in 
1870,  shows  us  the  great  and  prolific  nov- 
elist at  fifty-eight  years  of  age,  a  few 
months  befoi-e  his  death      ....       182 


CHARLES     DICKENS 

(1812-1870) 


CHARLES   DICKENS 


CHAPTER  I 

FIRST  DREAMS  AND  FIRST  NIGHTMARES — A 
child's  SOUL — THE  JOYS  OF  POVERTY — 
MR.  JOHN  DICKENS-MICA  WBER  —  LITTLE 
CHARLES  DAVY 

CHARLES    DICKENS 

Born  the  7th  February  1812 
Died  the  9th  June  1870 

SUCH  is  the  inscription  that  may  be  read 
upon  the  novelist's  tomb  in  Westminster 
Abbey,  in  the  very  heart  of  London,  which  his 
piercing  glance  had  learned  to  read  through  all 
its  fogs,  and  close  beside  the  Thames,  whose 
sombre  waters  and  mysterious  life  he  also 
painted,  in  the  midst  of  a  city  full  of  distress 
and  of  hope,  of  mourning  and  of  exquisite  char- 
ity. 


Ky 


L  ARLES  DICKENS 


Charies  Dickons,  the  date  of  his  birth,  the 
date  of  his  death,  then  a  period,  and  that  is  all. 
And  it  is  enough.  Phrases  are  unnecessary  in 
the  shadows  and  the  mystery  of  that  august 
necropolis,  not  far  from  the  tombs  of  Handel, 
composer  of  archangelic  harmonies,  of  Garrick, 
the  Shakespearean  actor,  whose  voice  and  ges- 
tures have  ceased  ;  of  his  friend  and  master,  the 
penetrating  moralist,  Samuel  Johnson,  and  of 
Macaulay,  the  gifted  historian  and  essayist. 

Charles  Dickens  is  there;  and  yet,  at  the 
same  time,  he  is  and  will  continue  to  be  every- 
where in  England.  His  spirit  abides  forever  in 
the  poetic  intimacy  of  the  British  home,  from 
the  most  sumptuous  mansion  to  the  most  hum- 
ble cottage.  He  brings  tears  and  laughter  to 
those  lords  of  the  earth  whose  injustice  and  hy- 
pocrisy he  so  often  indignantly  denounced,  and 
he  brings  tears  and  laughter  equally  to  the  dis- 
inherited, in  squalid  hovels,  littered  with  rags 
and  tatters. 

And  the  reason  is  that  Dickens  stooped  low 
over  the  abyss  of  suffering,  over  the  gulf  of  the 


FIRST  DREAMS  3 

regrets,  the  privations,  the  haunting  anxieties 
of  the  common  people,  at  the  same  time  that  he 
sang  so  magnificently  the  pure  and  naïve  joy, 
grotesque  and  yet  sublime,  of  poverty,  insanity, 
childhood  and  old  age.  He  is  English  and  he 
is  of  all  other  lands  ;  but,  first  and  foremost,  he 
is  English. 

Of  course,  the  writers  of  the  realistic  school 
have  found  grounds  for  criticism,  and  even  for 
accusing  him  quite  sharply  of  having  exagger- 
ated his  human  types  and  of  having  filled  his 
vast  and  crowded  works  with  a  motley  horde 
of  freaks  and  caricatures. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Dickens's  heroes,  like 
those  of  Homer  and  Rabelais,  Cervantes  and 
Hugo,  and  even  of  Balzac  himself,  master 
though  he  was  of  realism,  all  contain  some  ele- 
ment of  the  enormous,  the  fantastic  and  the 
truculent.  Instead  of  complaining  of  this, 
would  it  not  be  wiser  to  rejoice,  because  they 
are  not  merely  individual  and  temporal  char- 
acters, but  belong  to  the  general  patrimony  of 
humanity? 


4  CHARLES  DICKENS 

And  what  other  writer  may  boast  of  having 
offered  us  so  great  a  number  of  more  or  less 
plausible  monsters,  all  the  more  diverting  be- 
cause their  author  has  embroidered  their  vices 
or  their  simple  physical  and  moral  defects  with 
the  most  delightful  variations,  thus  allowing 
the  reader  to  avenge  himself,  as  it  were,  by 
whetting  his  teeth  upon  them  as  savoury  mor- 
sels! 

What  a  gallery  of  absurd  and  fragile  figures, 
of  sinister  scoundrels  and  amusing  scamps,  of 
dwarfs  and  giants,  and  what  an  atmosphere  of 
revolution  and  evangelization! 

We  pass  from  the  petulant  and  indescribable 
fatalism  of  Pickwick,  from  the  joviality  of  Ma- 
jor Bagstock,  from  the  confident  bohemianism 
of  Micawber,  the  delicious  kindliness  of  Peg- 
gotty,  the  innocence  of  Little  Dorrit  and  many 
another  adorable  child,  large  and  small  (for 
there  are  many  men  who  still  are  children,  and 
Dickens  himself  was  one  of  them,  magical  and 
sublime),  down  to  the  ignominy  of  Monks  and 


FIRST  DREAMS  5 

Uriah  Heep,  of  Quilp  and  Squeers  and  Jonas 
Chuzzlewit. 

Of  course,  Dickens's  radicalism  may  be  pleas- 
ing or  displeasing  to  the  partisans  of  different 
political  factions,  as  being  either  excessive  or 
over-moderate.  But  that  need  not  concern  us. 
The  writer  and  the  artist  do  not  need  to  dis- 
play a  banner  or  formulate  a  definite  platform. 
And,  for  that  matter,  the  influence  of  Dickens 
in  England,  both  from  the  pedagogical  and  so- 
cial point  of  view,  has  been  immense. 

It  is  possible  also  to  ridicule  his  happy  end- 
ings, his  concessions  to  the  taste  of  the  general 
public,  both  high  and  low,  his  manifold  and 
crowded  chapters,  his  faulty  construction,  his 
occasional  somewhat  coarse  effects.  But  his 
excess  of  details  does  not  alter  the  fact  that 
they  are  often  admirable.  A  high  and  sound 
morality  emanates  from  all  of  these  intense  and 
prolonged  spectacles. 

As  we  wander  in  the  company  of  Dickens 
among  the  good  and  the  bad,  as  we  study  their 
hilarity  and  their  melancholy,  their  honest  or 


6  CHARLES  DICKENS 

crafty  gestures,  their  follies,  their  attitudes, 
their  contortions,  at  the  sight  of  all  this  splen- 
did, suffering,  redoubtable  humanity,  all  the 
more  true  at  bottom  because  of  its  very  exag- 
geration of  the  truth,  we  find  ourselves  sharing 
the  emotion,  the  thrill,  the  ecstasy  of  the  au- 
thor himself  in  the  presence  of  what  is  natural 
and  pure. 

Such  is  the  journey  which  we  are  about  to 
make,  in  a  spirit  of  ardent  sympathy,  through 
the  life  and  works  of  Dickens,  each  of  which 
supplements  the  other.  And  we  have  no 
grounds  for  complaint  of  this,  since  his  own 
physiognomy  blends  easily  with  that  of  certain 
of  his  heroes,  spontaneous  and  impulsive  be- 
ings, possessed  of  singular  sensitiveness  and  ex- 
quisite humour. 

We  will  not  seek  to  explain  the  element  of 
anxiety,  tenderness  and  apprehension  shared  by 
him  with  a  few  of  his  most  important  charac- 
ters. It  will  sufi&ce  if  we  see  him  such  as  he 
was,  moving  in  the  midst  of  his  tyrants  and 
victims,  demons  and  angels,  and  shedding  upon 


FIRST  DREAMS  7 

them  a  lightning  vengeance  or  the  crowning 
halo  of  virtue. 

*'How  was  your  son  Charles  educated?" 

Such  was  the  question  that  was  put  one  day 
to  John  Dickens,  the  father  of  the  novelist  who 
had  achieved  so  swift  a  celebrity. 

"Hm,  hm!"  answ^ered  the  old  man,  ''you 
might  say  that  he  educated  himself!" 

And,  indeed,  it  would  certainly  seem  that 
Charles  Dickens,  like  his  hero,  David  Copper- 
field,  received  his  chief  training  in  the  harsh 
school  of  life. 

It  is  the  wide-awake  and  thoughtful  face  of 
little  David,  with  his  earnest  eyes  and  pretty 
curls,  that  most  readily  comes  before  us  when 
we  try  to  picture  the  childhood  of  little  Charles. 
And  how  are  we  to  conceive  of  Dickens  the 
father  otherwise  than  as  wearing  the  immortal 
features  of  the  optimistic  and  emphatic  Wilkie 
Micawber,  banishing  grim  reality  with  ambi- 
tious dreams  and  drowning  his  most  sombre 


8  CHARLES  DICKENS 

resolutions  in  the  delectable  aroma  of  a  bowl 
of  punch? 

Similarly,  we  see  no  reason  why  Mrs.  Mary 
Gibson  should  not  have  borne  some  little  re- 
semblance to  Peggotty;  Charles  used  to  come 
and  sit  in  the  kitchen,  with  a  big  book  in  his 
hand,  just  as  dear  little  Davy  did,  to  read  his 
crocodile  stories,  after  casting  an  anxious  glance 
at  the  church,  the  graveyard  and  the  deserted 
nests. 

But  one  must  mistrust  the  charm  and  the 
impressiveness  of  this  romantic  sort  of  auto- 
biography, if  one  has  regard  for  simple  historic 
truth. 

That  Dickens  constantly  made  use  of  actu- 
ality, of  his  memories,  of  his  own  personal  ex- 
periences in  regard  to  things  and  to  people,  for 
the  purpose  of  creating  types  and  painting  en- 
vironments is  a  striking  and  indisputable  fact. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  certain  that  the 
poet  and  the  humorist  in  him  have,  each  for 
his  own  purposes,  singularly  simplified  and 
generalized  the  characters  that  they  have  drawn 


FIRST  DREAMS  9 

and  graven,  to  the  end  of  making  them  more 
striking,  in  other  words,  more  touching  or  more 
ridiculous.  In  like  manner,  Dickens's  land- 
scapes are  adorned  with  all  the  high  colouring  of 
an  ardent  imagination.  Accordingly  it  is  neces- 
sary, while  making  occasional  helpful  compari- 
sons, to  avoid  interpretations  such  as  are  too 
ingenious  or  open  to  question,  and  to  keep  in 
mind  the  fondness  of  this  fantastic  and  irre- 
pressible romanticist  for  what  may  be  called  the 
optical  illusions  of  literature  and  the  drama. 

The  autobiographic  fragments  which  he  em- 
ployed in  David  Copperfield  are  neither  exten- 
sive enough  nor  explicit  enough  to  enable  us  to 
be  sure  of  not  falling  into  error  in  accepting 
these  adventurous  details.  We  may  add  that, 
even  in  his  personal  correspondence,  the  novel- 
ist did  not  deem  it  necessary  to  enter  at  any 
great  length  into  the  details  of  his  private  life, 
and  that  his  best  biographers,  such  as  Ward 
and  his  friend  Forster,  deliberately  maintain  a 
truly  British  reserve  on  more  than  one  point, 


10  CHARLES  DICKENS 

notwithstanding  the  interest  of  certain  episodes 
and  traits  of  character. 

His  birthplace  was  a  house  in  Landport,  on 
the  island  of  Portsea.  An  inscription  in  large 
letters  recalls  the  event,  the  birth  of  this  same 
Charles  Dickens,  whose  tender  and  powerful 
writings  were  destined  to  appeal  to  so  many- 
throbbing  hearts:     February  7th,  1812. 

It  is  a  humble  house  of  the  type  common  to 
the  English  provinces,  a  house  like  countless 
others  in  which  countless  obscure  destinies  have 
lain  hidden.  A  tiny  space  of  garden  plot  sepa- 
rates the  front  gate  from  the  entrance.  Two 
windows  on  the  ground  floor,  little  higher  than 
the  steps,  two  on  the  main  floor,  and  then  the 
attic. 

John  Dickens  was  employed  in  the  Navy  Pay 
Office.  This  Prodigal  Father,  as  he  was  des- 
tined to  be  called  later  on  by  Dickens,  in  his 
letters,  was  earning  at  that  time  between  eight 
hundred  and  a  thousand  dollars;  but,  although 
sincere  and  good-hearted — like  the  worthy  Mr. 
Micawber — he  delighted  in  giving  himself  up 


FIRST  DREAMS  11 

to  the  soaring  flights  of  his  adventurous  im- 
agination. Too  little  emphasis  has  been  placed, 
it  would  seem^  on  his  tastes  in  reading  and  his 
love  of  the  picturesque.  There  was  nothing  in 
him  of  the  "rond-de-cuir/'  made  famous  in  our 
modern  literature;  he  was  wholly  bohemian, 
fantastic,  naïve,  generous  and  improvident,  a 
man  for  whom  life  and  irresponsible  dreams 
are  one  and  the  same  thing. 

It  should  be  noted  also  that  his  wife,  who  be- 
fore marriage  was  Miss  Elizabeth  Barrow,  does 
not  seem  to  have  had  sufficient  force  of  charac- 
ter to  offset  such  dangerous  effects,  especially 
with  so  numerous  a  family,  which  consisted 
of  eight  children.  Fanny  was  the  oldest,  Charles 
the  second. 

At  the  time  of  his  birth  the  need  of  money 
had  already  begun  to  make  itself  felt  in  the 
household.  Between  the  new  responsibilities 
and  the  irregularity  of  their  habits,  they  were 
destined  to  know  a  steadily  augmenting  pov- 
erty and  want,  notwithstanding  that  the 
father's  salary  was  increased  to  seventeen  or 


12  CHARLES  DICKENS 

eighteen  hundred  dollars.  The  lack  of  system 
became  worse  and  worse,  and  the  expenses  mul- 
tiplied. The  Dickens  household  loved  good 
cheer  and  good  company,  if  only  in  order  to 
forget  the  injustice  of  existing  conditions  on 
earth,  the  lawyers'  writs  and  the  noisy  demands 
of  creditors. 

These  are  the  features  that  must  soon  im- 
press us  in  what  we  may  call  the  cinematograph 
of  Charles  Dickens's  early  years.  Forever 
haunted  by  the  idea  of  bettering  his  home  con- 
ditions, or,  since  comfort  is  not  quite  every- 
thing, of  at  least  discovering  an  atmosphere 
more  congenial  to  his  capricious  and  strongly 
exuberant  nature,  John  Dickens  formed  the 
habit  of  changing  his  residence,  and  transport- 
ing his  numerous  brood  and  his  naïve  and  ex- 
travagant hopes  from  one  locality  to  another. 

After  various  sojourns,  notably  in  Norfolk 
Street,  Bloomsbury,  the  family  installed  them- 
selves at  Chatham,  a  military  station  and  a 
town  of  considerable  importance,  with  more 


FIRST  DREAMS  13 

than  thirty  thousand  inhabitants,  situated  on 
the  Medway,  a  tributary  of  the  Thames. 

How  are  we  to  picture  the  small  Charles  of 
that  period?  He  seems  to  have  been  fair,  pale 
and  delicate.  He  was  often  ailing  and  some- 
times ill.  On  several  occasions  he  had  attacks 
of  convulsions.  Who  was  to  suspect  that  this 
pretty  child  would  one  day  become  an  active, 
robust  man,  occasionally  a  great  drinker,  often 
a  great  entertainer,  and  always  a  great  worker? 

His  childish  charm  attracted  attention.  He 
used  to  spend  his  days  and  evenings,  seated  in 
his  high-chair,  looking  at  pictures.  At  an  early 
age  his  father  would  set  him  upon  a  table  and 
bid  him  sing  popular  refrains  and  comic  songs, 
which  he  rendered  with  a  precocious  cleverness 
that  won  him  enthusiastic  applause. 

Expert  psychologist  that  he  is,  Mr.  Gilbert 
Chesterton,  an  English  critic  who,  it  should  be 
noted,  has  assigned  Dickens  to  his  true  place, 
has  not  failed  to  comment,  in  a  tone  at  once 
judicial  and  ironical,  upon  this  early  attitude  of 
Charles  Dickens,  fostered  by  father  and  mother 


14  CHARLES  DICKENS 

and  the  assembled  friends  and  relatives,  more 
intent  for  the  most  part  upon  amusement  than 
upon  irksome  toil.  Dickens  was  destined  to 
remain  throughout  his  life  more  or  less  in  the 
condition  of  a  child  towards  the  end  of  an  even- 
ing in  which  it  has  had  a  party,  in  other  words, 
agreeable,  joyous,  delighted,  but  strongly  over- 
excited and  secretly  almost  on  the  point  of 
tears. 

Nevertheless,  little  Charles  had  a  charming 
nature,  frank  and  easily  amused.  As  soon  as 
his  mother  and  aunt  had  between  them  taught 
him  to  read,  he  devoured  all  the  works  that  fell 
into  his  hands.  Each  one  of  them  was  a  dis- 
covery, especially  when  it  proved  to  be  a  mas- 
terpiece of  ironical  savour,  such  as  Tom  Jones. 
And  it  is  precisely  here  that  little  Charles  fore- 
shadows the  later  Dickens,  namely  a  master  of 
irony  even  beyond  the  border  line  of  senti- 
ment, in  the  midst  of  cries  of  grief  and  of  re- 
volt. 

When  Charles  was  not  reading  or  playing 
with  a  magic  lantern  in  company  with  boys  of 


FIRST  DREAMS  15 

his  own  age  and  with  a  pretty  little  girl  named 
Lucy,  whose  hair  was  as  golden  as  ripened 
grain — a  gentle  child  whom  he  loved  quite  in- 
genuously— or  when  he  was  not  singing  some 
songs  with  his  sister  Fanny,  he  was  forever 
exploring  the  surrounding  country. 

We  must  needs  follow  him  in  thought  along 
those  Kentish  highways.  What  ecstasies  he 
enjoyed  before  the  green  expanse  of  wide  hori- 
zons! What  strange  folk,  with  gargoyle  faces 
and  fantastic  trappings,  he  brushed  shoulders 
with:  tramps,  peddlers,  hostlers,  rogues  and 
revellers  of  every  class  and  every  species! 

His  father  once  took  him  to  the  slope  of 
Gad's  Hill,  and  the  gigantic  shade  of  Falstaff 
rose  before  their  imagination.  The  spot  filled 
the  boy  with  wondering  delight,  and  he 
dreamed  of  some  day  owning  the  house  and 
park  on  the  side  of  the  hill. 

"Work!"  said  the  Prodigal  Father,  always 
more  willing  to  preach  than  to  practise,  "and 
all  this  will  belong  to  you." 

Even  at  this  distance  we  can  still  see  Mr. 


16  CHARLES  DICKENS 

Micawber,  undaunted  by  his  perpetual  burden 
of  debts,  making  one  of  his  magnificent  ges- 
tures, to  emphasize  his  prediction.  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  Gad's  Hill  was  destined  to  be  Dick- 
ens's favourite  retreat  and  final  home.  As  has 
been  rightly  observed,  notwithstanding  a  nerv- 
ous energy  fertile  in  impulses  and  unforeseen 
manifestations,  under  the  spur  of  an  imagina- 
tion that  seemed  incapable  of  control,  he  really 
possessed,  in  addition  to  his  overwhelming  ac- 
tivity, a  good  deal  of  method  in  his  ideas. 

Chapter  II  of  David  Copperfield  is  entitled: 
"I  Observe."  At  Chatham  Charles  Dickens 
passed  his  time  in  roaming  and  observing.  One 
day  he  went  to  a  theatre  and  found  it  an  amaz- 
ing revelation.  Grimaldi,  the  clown  to  whom 
he  later  devoted  one  of  his  first  books,  aston- 
ished him  by  his  grimaces. 

The  famous  novelist,  who  throughout  his  life 
retained  a  freedom  of  manners,  disdaining  to 
fill  the  pretentious  rôle  of  high-priest  of  letters, 
would  willingly  play  the  clown  to  amuse  his 
children  and  family.    He  habitually  retained  a 


FIRST  DREAMS  17 

weakness  for  simple  and  natural  comedy.  He 
never  hesitated  to  give  the  preference  to  child- 
ish merriment  rather  than  to  hypocritical 
solemnity. 

In  those  days  at  Chatham  Charles  was  free 
and  happy.  But  he  was  steadily  growing,  and 
one  day  his  father  asked  himself  why  the  boy 
should  not  be  receiving  some  sort  of  systematic 
instruction.  Accordingly,  in  1821,  he  was  en- 
trusted to  a  certain  teacher  named  Giles,  who 
was  delighted  with  the  precociousness  of  a  pupil 
as  tractable  as  he  was  gifted  with  memory  and 
understanding. 

The  following  year  this  sensitive  and  winning 
boy-dreamer,  whose  mind  ripened  early,  wrote 
a  tragedy  entitled  Alisnar,  the  Sultan  of  India. 

It  is  sometimes  dangerous  to  comment  upon 
the  early  efforts  of  famous  men,  and  it  is  so 
easy,  for  the  sake  of  proving  our  case,  to  per- 
suade ourselves  that  we  have  been  able  to 
search  far  back  and  find  manifestations  of 
genius  in  the  bud.  But  we  may  at  least  record 
the  fact  that  Dickens  began  to  give  signs  of  his 


18  CHARLES  DICKENS 

vocation  at  an  early  age.  Does  that  mean  that 
it  might  have  been  predicted  on  the  basis  of 
his  first  boyish  efforts?  We  must  not  exag- 
gerate. As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  showed  himself 
eager  to  learn,  first  for  the  sake  of  learning, 
and  then — why  not  admit  it? — for  the  sake  of 
shining  before  his  family  and  the  world  at  large. 
Little  Charles  was  a  boy  quite  as  remarkable 
for  his  ambition  and  self-esteem  as  for  his  eager 
intelligence  and  his  keen  emotion  before  the 
beauties  of  nature  and  the  recital  of  fine  stories 
which  little  by  little  fired  his  imagination. 

While  Charles  abandoned  himself  to  the  de- 
lights of  the  Spectator,  and  Daniel  Defoe  and 
Oliver  Goldsmith,  his  father  continued  to  form 
vast  projects  and  discourse  upon  them  at  great 
length,  but  he  lost  his  situation.  The  black 
shadow  of  want  descended  upon  the  household  ; 
for  neither  John  Dickens  nor  his  wife  was  ca- 
pable of  struggling  successfully  against  hunger 
and  despair. 

They  took  the  coach  for  London  and  sent 
their  meagre  household  effects  by  water.     Si- 


FIRST  DREAMS  19 

multaneously  with  debts  and  ruin,  mourning 
entered  the  saddened  home;  they  lost  one  of 
their  children.  And  the  others  cried  and  wept. 
.  Mrs.  Dickens — we  almost  said  Mrs.  Micaw- 
ber — having  had  some  little  education,  con- 
ceived an  idea:  an  idea  that  no  doubt  seemed 
to  her  husband  as  a  stroke  of  genius.  On  a 
humble  little  house  front  in  the  North  End  of 
the  city  she  put  out  the  following  sign:  Mrs. 
Dickens's  Establishment  for  Young  Ladies. 
Did  not  this  promise  a  means  of  salvation,  a 
protection  from  the  hideous  bankruptcy  which 
had  overtaken  her  husband  and  forced  him  to 
lodge  at  the  expense  of  the  State? 

Naturally,  no  young  girls  ventured  to  ask 
Mrs.  Dickens  to  inculcate  the  principles  of  let- 
ters, sciences  and  the  art  of  social  deportment. 
Since  little  Charles  had  engaging  manners, 
pretty  eyes,  assurance  and  a  pleasing  smile,  it 
fell  to  his  lot  to  be  sent  around  to  the  various 
tradesmen,  to  try  to  effect  some  understanding 
with  them,  and  beg  them  to  be  conciliatory 
and  patient. 


20  CHARLES  DICKENS 

It  was  a  thankless  task  ;  but  another  still  more 
thankless  awaited  the  proud  lad,  eager  for  dis- 
tinction and  success,  when  it  became  necessary 
for  him  to  go  knocking  at  obscure  doors  in  the 
depths  of  sinister  back  alleys,  in  quest  of  pawn- 
brokers and  money  lenders. 

In  order  to  obtain  a  wretched  subsistence  for 
his  brothers  and  sisters,  now  reduced  to  rags, 
Charles  was  forced  to  sell  the  last  trifling 
objects  of  value,  even  the  kitchen  utensils.  He 
wrangled  with  rapacious  second-hand  dealers, 
crafty-eyed  individuals  who  were  pleased  not 
only  to  enrich  themselves  at  the  expense  of  the 
unfortunate,  but  to  torture  them  into  the  bar- 
gain. Consequently  no  other  novelist,  with  the 
exception  of  Balzac,  has  so  well  succeeded  in 
picturing  these  human  birds  of  prey,  their  ruses 
and  their  ignominious  cupidity. 

While  Charles  continued  to  fulfil  these  la- 
mentable duties  as  best  he  could,  and  at  the 
same  time  strove  to  interest  certain  persons  of 
benevolent  aspect  in  the  fate  of  this  numerous 
and  ruined  family,  Mr.  John  Dickens,   after 


FIRST  DREAMS  21 

having  long  cut  an  imposing  figure,  in  close- 
buttoned  frock  coat,  and  with  cane  in  hand, 
now  appealed  to  every  possible  saint,  without 
succeeding  in  moving  them. 

He  consoled  himself  in  the  debtors'  prison  of 
the  Marshalsea  by  delivering  high-sounding 
tirades  which  won  him  the  admiration  of  his 
companions  in  misfortune.  He  discussed  with 
them,  he  organized  a  sort  of  syndicate  among 
them,  he  planned  to  vanquish  adverse  fortune 
through  the  weight  of  his  own  superiority.  The 
philosophy  of  John  Dickens — or  of  Mr.  Micaw- 
ber! — is  exquisite,  and  on  the  whole  fairly  prac- 
tical. He  played  the  part  of  victim,  proudly 
and  admirably.  He  had  not  a  penny  with  which 
to  bless  himself,  but  he  had  the  wealth  of  his 
ideas,  his  imagination,  his  renunciation,  his  se- 
renity rising  superior  to  the  cruelty  of  fate! 

His  family  consoled  themselves  less  easily. 
How  were  they  to  vanquish  adversity?  Fanny, 
Charles's  oldest  sister,  entered  the  Royal  Acad- 
emy of  Music.  In  course  of  time  she  won  a 
prize,  and  when  that  day  came,  Charles,  al- 


22  CHARLES  DICKENS 

though  not  jealous,  felt  that  his  heart  was  on 
the  point  of  breaking.  To  him  it  was  a  dis- 
tressful, utterly  discouraging  day.  And  the  rea- 
son? Simply  that  at  this  very  time  young 
Dickens  himself  was  still  climbing  his  Calvary. 
That  epoch  of  his  life  was  so  painful  that  he 
never  afterwards  dared  to  look  it  in  the  face, 
but  did  his  best  to  forget  it. 

Later,  a  long  time  later,  his  intimate  friend 
and  biographer,  Forster,  spoke  to  him  of  a 
workman  who  claimed  to  have  known  him  in  a 
blacking  manufactory,  not  far  from  the  Hun- 
gerford  Market.  Dickens  answered  with  an 
evasive  'V^s."  Subsequently  he  sought  a  meet- 
ing with  Forster  and  revealed  the  whole  lamen- 
table episode,  a  dark  and  infernal  night- 
mare in  the  course  of  his  otherwise  rapid  ascen- 
sion towards  success  and  fame.  A  nightmare 
as  black  as  the  blacking  contained  in  the  bottles 
upon  which  he  was  obliged  to  paste  labels  care- 
fully and  rapidly,  throughout  long  and  atro- 
cious days!  He  made  a  further  allusion  to  it 
when  he  placed  David  Copperfield  with  the  firm 


DICKENS  AT  DIFFERENT  AGES 
Above:  "Boz"  (his  pseudonym  at  the  outset)  at  the  age  of  twenty-three, 
from  the  portrait  by  Lawrence. — At  the  age  of  thirty-four,  from  a 
miniature  by  ^Margaret  GiUie.  Below:  In  1856,  from  a  portrait  by 
Frith. — In  1845,  in  the  rôle  of  Captain  Bobadil,  from  the  portrait  by 
C.  R.  LesUe. 


FIRST  DREAMS  23 

of  Murdstone  &  Grinby  before  he  became  a  pu- 
pil of  Dr.  Strong. 

At  all  events  we  know  that  he  was  employed 
by  the  Lamert  Brothers,  distant  relatives  of 
Mrs.  Dickens  and  manufacturers  of  shoe  black- 
ing, at  a  weekly  salary  of  six  shillings.  Charles, 
who,  young  as  he  was,  already  loved  the  beauti- 
ful, the  artistic  and  the  ideal,  must  needs  clip 
the  wings  of  his  youthful  and  fervent  imagina- 
tion, in  order  to  spend  his  days  crouching  over 
bottles  in  a  gloomy  workroom  in  a  foul  base- 
ment, and,  what  was  worse,  behind  a  window 
where,  in  an  agony  of  humiliation,  he  drew  an 
admiring  crowd  of  idlers  by  the  swiftness  and 
dexterity  of  his  movements. 

Does  this  mean  that  Charles  disliked  work 
and  was  not  anxious  to  contribute  to  the  relief 
of  his  family?  Not  by  any  means.  He  even 
strove  to  do  carefully  and  zealously  what  was 
given  him  to  do.  But  he  suffered  from  the 
degradation  of  such  employment  and  surround- 
ings. He  suffered  from  the  effort  that  it  cost 
him  all  the  time  to  keep  from  breaking  down 


24  CHARLES  DICKENS 

altogether,  overcome  with  grief  and  shame.  He 
suffered  also  from  hunger,  cold  and  loneliness. 
He  had  a  tender,  expansive,  exuberant  nature 
that  pined  in  solitude;  for  he  remained  alone, 
even  in  the  midst  of  his  companions  in  the 
workroom,  for  they  were  coarse  and  little  fit- 
ted to  understand  him. 

Meanwhile  John  Dickens  was  becoming  more 
and  more  convinced  that  a  debtors'  prison  was 
an  acceptable  refuge  from  the  vicissitudes  of 
life;  he  occupied  his  leisure  by  counting  the 
holes  in  the  ceiling,  with  a  sentimental  and  de- 
tached air.  It  was  not  long  before  his  family 
came  to  share  his  captivity  in  the  Marshalsea. 
Charles,  however,  did  not  live  with  the  family. 
He  had  a  room — and  what  a  wretched  room  it 
was! — in  the  house  of  an  old  woman,  more  or 
less  closely  resembling  the  Mrs.  Pichpin  whom 
he  so  rigorously  pictured  in  one  of  his  novels. 

He  was  now  twelve  years  of  age  and  thrown 
entirely  on  his  own  resources.  He  sadly  and 
furtively  consumed  his  sausages  and  pudding, 
and  profited  by  his  hours  of  leisure  to  wander 


FIRST  DREAMS  25 

about  and  study  things  and  people.  It  was  at 
this  period  that  he  discovered  the  delight  of  the 
Street  and  the  Passing  Show,  and  dreamed 
through  the  evening  under  the  street  lamps. 
London  Bridge,  Holborn,  Whitechapel  and 
Charing  Cross  no  longer  had  secrets  for  him. 
What  joy,  when  he  could  escape  from  the  black- 
ing warehouse,  a  jail  a  thousand  times  more 
hideous  to  him  than  the  debtors'  prison  (where 
at  least  he  enjoyed  a  faint  shadow  of  home 
comfort  on  Sundays)  and  could  watch,  in  a 
sort  of  real  and  tangible  fairyland,  as  though 
in  a  waking  dream,  the  hurried  passage  of  be- 
lated pedestrians,  or  paused  before  the  knocker 
of  an  old  door,  or  at  the  foot  of  a  statue,  or  at 
the  entrance  to  some  church  or  park!  WTiat  a 
multitude  of  types  he  saw!  And  how  he  was 
piling  up,  without  knowing  it,  a  great  store  of 
emotions,  confused,  yet  so  intense  that  they 
made  him  forget  his  own  troubles,  the  monot- 
ony of  his  existence,  and  all  the  anxieties 
which  were  his  portion,  poor  lonely  boy,  infi- 
nitely well  meaning,  infinitely  apprehensive  and 


26  CHARLES  DICKENS 

distressed.  Yes,  he  was  poor,  beyond  ques- 
tion, and  lost  in  the  midst  of  the  indif- 
ferent crowd.  But  none  the  less  he  had  his 
hours  of  chimerical  joy.  And  no  one  has  ever 
succeeded  better  in  analysing  the  touching  and 
grotesque  delight  of  the  starving  at  a  feast,  of 
the  deserted  who  have  found  friends,  of  the 
desperate  who  have  begun  to  hope  again.  What 
is  the  happiness  of  ordinary  well-filled,  con- 
tented folk  in  comparison  with  these  strange 
joys? 

On  one  occasion  young  Dickens — as,  later,  his 
own  David  Copperfield — carrying  his  piece  of 
bread  under  his  arm,  carefully  enveloped  in  pa- 
per as  if  some  rare  book,  like  a  true  gentle- 
man, boldly  entered  the  Alamode  Beef-house 
in  Clare  Court.  He  took  his  seat  in  the  best 
dining-room,  and  with  much  dignity  ordered  a 
portion  of  beef.  The  man  who  served  him 
stared  at  him  as  though  he  had  been  some  curi- 
ous animal,  and  pointed  him  out  to  the  other 
waiter.     But  no  matter;  it  was  a  real  feast. 


FIRST  DREAMS  27 

Little  Charles  took  his  leave  quite  calmly  and 
majestically,  leaving  a  halfpenny  as  a  tip. 

During  the  period  of  his  inferno  there  were 
other  similar  glimpses  of  paradise.  They  were 
like  oases  in  the  desert,  one  and  all  of  them 
constituting  strong  impressions  that  he  was 
destined  later  to  pass  on  to  his  characters.  For 
he  knew  these  characters  already,  intimately, 
long  before  he  gave  them  life — such  intense, 
quivering,  hallucinating  life! 

On  another  occasion  he — and  David  after 
him — entered  a  public  house.  The  landlord  was 
somewhat  disconcerted  at  the  unexpected  sight 
of  this  small  and  youthful  customer. 

''What  is  your  very  best — the  very  best — ale, 
a  glass?"  asked  Charles. 

'Twopence." 

"Then  just  draw  me  a  glass  of  that,  if  you 
please,  with  a  good  head  to  it." 

The  landlord,  much  amused,  beckoned  to  his 
wife.  They  both  proceeded  to  ask  a  number 
of  friendly  questions  of  this  boy  with  such  a 
self-reliant  manner.     He  answered  them  cau- 


28  CHARLES  DICKENS 

tiously,  determined  not  to  be  too  communica- 
tive. They  ended  by  serving  him  a  very  mild 
ale  and  something  to  eat  besides,  and  the  land- 
lord's wife  could  not  resist  kissing  him  when  he 
left.  Oh,  that  good  ale  and  that  good  meal! 
Among  all  the  great  banquets  to  which  he  was 
destined  to  be  invited  later  and  at  which  he  was 
to  be  entertained  like  a  hero  of  dreams  and 
fairyland,  Charles  Dickens  would  never  meet 
with  food  or  drink  that  tasted  better. 

Yet  these  intermissions,  these  moments  of 
forgetfulness  and  naïve  pleasure,  could  not 
make  up  for  the  drudgery  of  the  blacking  ware- 
house. His  health  remained  delicate.  One 
morning,  when  he  was  employed  in  closing  the 
jars  of  blacking  he  was  overcome  with  dizzi- 
ness. He  tried  to  fight  off  the  feeling,  but,  with 
all  his  strength  of  will,  he  had  to  succumb  to 
it.  Another  of  the  lads  employed  there,  Robert 
by  name,  who  had  hitherto  made  Dickens  the 
butt  of  rather  coarse  witticisms,  set  to  work  to 
tend  him  with  that  admirable  devotion  which 
is  so  often  met  with  among  the  lower  orders 


FIRST  DREAMS  29 

utterly  lacking  in  other  refinements.  Accord- 
ingly Robert,  more  familiarly  known  as  Bob, 
arranged  Charles  comfortably  on  a  bed  of  straw 
and  applied  wet  cloths  to  his  head. 

When  evening  came  Bob,  whose  devotion 
knew  no  halfway  measures,  insisted  upon  ac- 
companying his  sick  comrade  home.  At  this 
point  begins  what  one  of  Dickens's  best  biogra- 
phers calls  a  ''tragi-comedy."  The  two  lads 
were,  each  of  them,  equally  obstinate.  Charles 
would  have  allowed  himself  to  be  chopped  in 
pieces  sooner  than  admit  that  his  home  and 
that  of  his  family  was  in  the  notorious  debtors' 
prison.  Consequently,  sick  and  weak  as  he  was, 
he  led  Bob  from  street  to  street,  quite  at  ran- 
dom, and  finally  stopped  before  a  house  of  re- 
spectable appearance.  Then,  after  thanking 
Bob,  he  ascended  the  steps  and  entered  the  ves- 
tibule. He  got  out  of  his  dilemma,  when  the 
servant  came  to  the  door,  by  asking  for  the  first 
person  whose  name  occurred  to  him,  which  hap- 
pened to  be  that  of  his  unconscious  persecutor, 


30  CHARLES  DICKENS 

Bob.    After  which  he  fled  in  hot  haste  to  the 
Marshalsea. 

Fortune  favours  the  brave.  But  the  goddess 
is  so  capricious  that  from  time  to  time  she  also 
favours  the  improvident.  Mr.  Dickens,  thanks 
to  an  unexpected  inheritance,  found  himself 
liberated  from  prison  and  for  the  time  being 
guaranteed  from  want. 

Charles  had  already  pleaded  his  cause  with 
his  father.  His  one  purpose  in  hfe  was  to  es- 
cape from  his  inferno,  to  leave  the  blacking 
warehouse.  A  quarrel,  which  arose  between 
Mr.  Dickens  and  Mr.  Lamert,  the  director  of 
the  manufactory,  resulted  in  setting  him  free. 
Mrs.  Dickens,  who  was  quite  pitiless,  advised 
her  husband  to  apologise,  but  the  latter,  weak 
though  he  usually  was,  had  the  good  sense  not 
to  yield. 

Charles  was  now  sent  to  the  Wellington 
House  Academy.  Instruction  seems  to  have 
held  a  smaller  place  there  than  canings  admin- 
istered magisterially  by  a  certain  Mr.  Jones, 


FIRST  DREAMS  31 

who,  all  things  considered,  was  probably  less 
brutal  than  Creakles  in  David  Copperfield. 

An  American  writer,  Mr.  Hughes,  has  proved 
convincingly  that  Charles  Dickens  has  exer- 
cised a  real  and  lasting  influence  on  modern 
pedagogy  in  England.  He  heaped  ridicule  upon 
the  hateful  and  cruel  monitors  who  avenged 
their  own  failures  upon  the  children  committed 
to  their  care,  and  he  cast  discredit  upon  cor- 
poral punishment  as  a  process  of  education. 

But  at  all  events  matters  could  not  have  been 
so  terrible  in  a  school  in  which  Charles,  in  con- 
junction with  one  of  his  comrades,  was  able  to 
found  a  school  paper,  and  where  he  revelled  in 
private  theatricals.  He  was  both  stage  director 
and  chief  actor.  We  must  bear  in  mind  that 
in  after  years  Dickens  frequently  indulged  in 
this  same  pastime.  However,  he  never  in- 
dulged in  it  except  as  an  amateur.  Yet,  it  is 
asserted  that  he  had  all  the  qualities  essential 
to  success  upon  the  stage.  In  his  famous  read- 
ings he  was  always  far  less  a  reader  than  an 
astonishing  comedian. 


32  CHARLES  DICKENS 

Charles  did  not  remain  long  at  the  Welling- 
ton House  Academy.  His  comrades  remem- 
bered him  as  a  likeable  boy,  good-mannered, 
quick-witted  and  easily  excitable.  He  seems  to 
have  done  less  studying  than  his  hero,  David, 
or  rather  he  did  not  stay  long  enough  at  the 
school  to  show  what  his  real  talents  were. 

He  was  now  fifteen  years  old,  but  the  fam- 
ily's slender  resources  would  not  permit  of  his 
preparing  to  enter  the  university.  Besides,  it 
was  time  that  he  began  to  earn  his  living.  Mis- 
fortune had  given  him  a  singular  maturity,  in 
addition  to  his  naïve  charm  and  his  desire  to 
raise  himself  through  reflection  and  persevering 
efforts.  We  shall  soon  find  him  on  the  road 
to  fame  and  fortune,  a  fairly  short  road  in  his 
case,  though  not  lacking  in  a  few  serious  obsta- 
cles. But,  like  David  Copperfield,  young 
Charles  was  destined  to  surmount  them.  He 
went  steadily  on,  at  a  joyous  pace,  towards  the 
vast  horizons  which  awaited  him. 


CHAPTER   II 

OFFICE  BOY,  REPORTER,  STENOGRAPHER — THE 
PSYCHOLOGY  OF  A  SENTIMENTAL  HISTORY — 
THE  BEST  FRIEND  OF  CHARLES  DICKENS, 
WHOSE  NAME  IS  BOZ 

CHARLES  DICKENS  is  the  appealing 
psychologist  of  meditative  and  unhappy 
childhood,  hungry  for  tenderness  and  love, 
childhood  petted  by  the  few,  and  chiefly  by  the 
simple-hearted,  who  often  are  also  the  hum- 
blest, but  misunderstood  and  tyrannised  over 
by  the  rest. 

Infinitely  sensitive  himself,  he  had  only  to 
recall  his  own  wretched  loneliness,  the  harsh, 
repellent  faces  which  surrounded  him,  the 
environments  from  which  he  suffered  and  his 
misinterpreted  longing  for  affection,  in  order  to 
be  sincere  and  pathetic. 

Charles  Dickens  is  also  the  psychologist,  de- 
33 


34  CHARLES  DICKENS 

liberately  stem  and  relentless,  of  the  men  of 
law. 

A  certain  London  attorney,  Edward  Black- 
more,  with  whom  young  Charles  served  as  clerk 
after  having  spent  some  time  in  the  office  of  a 
solicitor  in  New  Square,  declared  in  the  course 
of  an  interview  : 

^^I  have  seen  a  good  many  of  his  heroes,  and 
I  may  add  that  I  remember  them  perfectly 
well." 

At  all  events,  at  the  age  of  sixteen,  Charles, 
who  possessed  a  good  handwriting  and  a  quite 
creditable  orthography,  was  fulfilling  the  duties 
of  an  attorney's  office  boy,  a  profession  upon 
which  he  afterwards  avenged  himself  by  rid- 
dling it  with  the  shafts  of  his  satire.  It  was 
this  experience  which  enabled  him  to  invent 
such  monsters  as  Wobbler,  Chuckster  and 
Lowten,  and  to  use  his  scalpel  as  analyser  and 
social  reformer,  for  the  purpose  of  dissecting 
the  anatomy  of  their  barbaric  instincts,  their 
misshapen  thoughts,  their  corroded  hearts. 

In  dim-lit  offices,  upon  which  there  seemed 


OFFICE  BOY,  ETC.  35 

to  rest  the  weight  of  dusty  centuries  of  mourn- 
ful customs  and  traditions,  he  initiated  himself 
into  the  principles  of  the  law,  and  more  espe- 
cially of  legal  procedure.  He  passed  insensibly 
from  humanity  bygone  and  vanished  to  human- 
ity present  and  future. 

While  he  had  a  clear  vision  of  the  conquerors 
and  the  conquered  in  all  these  redoubtable 
struggles  for  life,  he  also  had  an  intuitive  sense 
of  all  the  secret  dramas  which  might  be  read 
between  the  lines  of  jargon  that  overspread  the 
pages  of  contracts  and  sealed  documents. 

What  ambuscades  he  discovered,  long  before 
he  began  to  denounce  them,  in  these  laborator- 
ies of  legal  cunning,  in  which  the  inexperienced 
and  luckless  wight  is  only  too  often  captured, 
and  destined  to  struggle  wretchedly  like  a  fly 
in  a  spider's  web! 

Charles  none  the  less  punctually  performed 
his  monotonous  task  as  attorney's  clerk  with 
all  the  more  eagerness,  because  he  had  not  the 
slightest  wish^to  advance  in  that  career.  He 
seemed  to  know  intuitively  that  he  v/as  simply 


36  CHARLES  DICKENS 

covering  one  stage  of  his  life  as  an  observer  of 
men.  He  knew  that  it  would  not  be  long  be- 
fore he  would  escape  from  this  new  jail,  in 
which  he  at  least  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  and 
mentally  '^picking  the  bones"  of  some  singular 
and  characteristic  types. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  after  working  all  day  he 
continued  to  work  well  into  the  night.  He  had 
taken  up  the  study  of  stenography.  At  that 
period,  owing  to  the  lack  of  any  really  practical 
method,  it  required  a  long  and  complex  study 
to  assimilate  a  rather  alarming  quantity  of  con- 
ventional signs.  But  his  father  had  already  se- 
cured a  good  position  on  a  newspaper  as  short- 
hand reporter  in  the  House  of  Commons. 

John  Dickens?  The  former  prisoner  in  the 
Marshalsea?  Yes,  why  not?  But  through 
what  lucky  chance?  Or  is  it  possible,  after  all, 
that  the  Micawber  element  in  his  character 
had  not  really  harmed  the  elder  Dickens? 
There  is  a  question  that  we  may  ask  ourselves, 
and  an  enigma  that  we  need  not  attempt  to 
solve.    But  let  us  remember  that  John  Dickens 


OFFICE  BOY,  ETC.  37 

was  capable,  if  not  of  perseverance,  at  least  of 
ingenuity. 

Charles  wished  to  become  a  writer.  In  any 
case  it  was  an  ambition  which  his  passion  for 
work  justified.  Now,  he  foresaw,  and  not  with- 
out reason,  that  the  profession  of  reporter  and 
editor  was  at  least  a  stepping-stone  towards  au- 
thorship, possibly  towards  popularity  as  an  au- 
thor. 

To  become  popular!  To  be  applauded! 
Well,  why  not?  This  project  for  escaping  from 
obscurity  and  obtaining  a  speedy  fame  un- 
doubtedly haunted  him.  First,  he  must  not 
rust  away  in  those  sinister  law  offices,  where  the 
present  was  lugubrious  and  the  future  specu- 
lative ;  secondly,  he  must  achieve  popularity  by 
revealing  to  others  what  he  had  already  discov- 
ered in  the  depths  of  his  own  being.  Such  was 
the  condition  of  his  mind  at  this  period. 

But  what  was  he  to  do?  What  should  be  his 
first  step?  He  wrote  to  the  directors  of  the 
Royal  Opera  at  Co  vent  Garden,  with  a  certain 
amount  of  naïveté,  because  he  made  it  clear 


38  CHARLES  DICKENS 

that  he  was  nobody  at  all,  that  he  was  keenly 
anxious  to  become  somebody,  and  that  he 
thought  he  had  the  necessary  qualifications  to 
interest  and  to  please. 

Undoubtedly  it  was  the  ingenuousness  of  the 
letter  which  won  favour,  for  they  accorded  him 
an  interview  and  named  a  day.  When  the  day 
came  Charles,  sick  and  shivering  with  fever,  was 
forced  to  keep  his  bed.  He  wrote  again,  ex- 
plaining and  anxiously  begghig  for  another  ap- 
pointment. Another  date  was  agreed  upon. 
But  before  it  arrived  Charles,  who  had  already 
acquired  considerable  skill  in  stenography,  held 
a  position  as  reporter  on  the  True  Sun.  Other- 
wise, who  knows  whether  he  might  not  have 
become  a  great  actor?  Consequently  we  need 
not  regret  this  circumstance  to  which  it  is  by 
no  means  impossible  that  we  owe  the  immortal 
masterpieces  of  Charles  Dickens. 

Let  us,  in  passing,  pay  our  respects  to  that 
skill  in  stenography,  which  the  novelist  him- 
self characterises  as  a  measure  of  desperation, 
and  which  permitted  him,  as  it  did  his  own 


OFFICE  BOY,  ETC.  39 

David  Copperfield,  to  find  his  way  through 
journalism  to  his  true  path. 

He  was  assigned,  at  the  outset,  to  report  cases 
tried  in  the  Court  of  Chancery.  In  vacation 
time,  which  he  spent  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Chatham,  and  whenever  he  could  spare  time  to 
visit  the  British  Museum,  where  it  was  possible 
to  make  comparison  of  the  different  systems, 
he  spent  hour  after  hour  plunged  in  shorthand 
manuals. 

Unquestionably  this  was  a  hard  apprentice- 
ship for  his  exuberant  imagination.  But  in  at- 
tempting to  restore  to  life  the  ardent  physiog- 
nomy of  Dickens,  a  man  of  such  exaggerated 
sensitiveness  and  nervous  susceptibility  that  he 
was  capable  of  being  so  moved  by  his  own  reci- 
tals as  to  lack  the  courage  to  continue  them,  or 
to  write  them  over,  or  reread  them,  we  must 
constantly  remind  ourselves  that  this  same  man 
was  endowed  with  an  extraordinary  strength  of 
wiU. 

It  seems  odd  to  discover  in  him,  side  by  side, 
on  the  one  hand,  what  may  be  called  his  somer- 


40  CHARLES  DICKENS 

saults  of  impulsiveness,  his  very  pronounced 
fondness  for  keen  witticisms  and  even  for 
broadly  farcical  horse-play;  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  a  tenacity  of  purpose,  a  veritable  obses- 
sion for  continuing  his  task  and  acquitting  him- 
self of  it  with  a  maximum  of  perfection  and 
success. 

It  means  little  to  us,  no  doubt,  to  know  today 
that  the  author  of  Nicholas  Nickleby  and 
Oliver  Twist  was  a  past  master  in  stenography. 
Nevertheless,  it  must  be  noted  that  all  of  his 
fellow  reporters  agreed  upon  this  point.  Fur- 
thermore, it  should  be  added  that  he  distin- 
guished himself  quite  as  much  in  the  capacity 
of  journalist  and  editor. 

Thanks  to  his  impetuosity,  his  conscientious 
determination  to  do  his  very  utmost,  and  his 
"natural  need  of  activity,  even  riotous  activity, 
he  made  an  ideal  reporter.  Towards  his  twen- 
tieth year  his  health  had  become  better  and  per- 
mitted him  to  undergo  long  periods  of  fatigue, 
veritable  prodigies  of  physical  and  mental  ef- 
fort. 


OFFICE  BOY,  ETC.  41 

As  parliamentary  reporter  he  rapidly  ac- 
quired the  confidence  of  his  colleagues  on  the 
True  Sun,  as  was  proved  when  they  appointed 
him  as  spokesman  to  present  their  claim  for 
an  increase  in  salaries  to  the  business  manager 
of  the  paper;  and  his  successful  pleading  won 
their  cause. 

Accordingly  we  find  that  Charles  Dickens 
took  the  profession  of  journalism  quite  seri- 
ously and  fulfilled  his  functions  with  an  adroit 
and  impassioned  zeal.  A  journalist!  He  was 
destined  always  to  be  more  or  less  a  journalist 
throughout  his  life.  Even  his  novels  were  pub- 
lished in  installments.  And  on  many  an  occa- 
sion he  had  inspirations  well  worthy  of  a  true 
journalist  and  magazine  editor. 

Accordingly  we  need  not  be  surprised  at  hear- 
ing him,  in  the  course  of  an  address  to  the 
journalists  of  America,  pay  an  eloquent  tribute 
to  that  profession,  to  which  he  gave  the  credit 
for  his  first  literary  successes. 

Undoubtedly  he  spoke  more  truly  than  he 
knew.    Being  not  merely  a  reporter,  but  a  re- 


42  CHARLES  DICKENS 

porter  endowed  with  genius,  he  noted  with  an 
amazing  precision  of  detail  the  people  whom 
he  saw  and  knew,  and  whose  purposes  he 
fathomed  and  whose  inmost  depths  he  scru- 
tinised with  his  penetrating  glance.  It  is  these 
portraits  which  he  afterwards  gave  back  to  us, 
set  in  their  natural  frames  ;  for  man  and  his  en- 
vironment are  best  explained  the  one  by  the 
other. 

His  bitter  spirit  of  revolt,  which  he  had 
masked  under  emotion  and  tears,  expanded  in 
contact  with  that  public  and  political  life  which 
the  young  parliamentary  reporter  was  required, 
by  virtue  of  his  very  duties,  to  seize  in  the  heat 
of  action,  and  in  which  his  clear-sighted  radi- 
calism and  his  polemical  zeal  found  an  early 
opportunity  for  profitable  employment. 

In  the  most  sordid  quarters  of  the  capital, 
haunted  by  beggars,  ragamuffins  and  cripples, 
the  whole  anonymous  mass  of  the  wretched  and 
ill-fated,  he  succeeded  in  a  certain  sense  in  lay- 
ing his  finger  on  each  and  all  of  the  sufferings 
of  the  people.     He  felt  the  quivering  soul  of 


OFFICE  BOY,  ETC.  43 

the  populace,  among  whom  there  is  quite  as 
much  of  unguessed  nobility  and  admirable  re- 
sources as  there  is  of  its  only  too  real  infamy. 

Accordingly,  he  was  not  likely  to  be  more  in- 
dulgent towards  statesmen  than  towards  men 
of  the  law.  Just  as  he  had  once  seen  in  flesh 
and  blood  the  prototype  of  Sampson  Brass  and 
willingly  exalted  him,  in  order  that  his  fall 
should  be  the  greater,  so  also  he  perceived  from 
his  reporter's  seat  in  the  House  of  Lords  or  of 
Commons  the  dummy  figures  of  his  Circumlo- 
cution Office. 

The  trio  of  Barnacles  was  no  product  of  his 
imagination.  As  a  writer  for  the  populace,  how 
could  he  fail  to  compare  the  pretentious  nullity 
or  indifference  of  certain  men  in  high  places 
with  the  needs  and  demands  of  the  crowds  of 
the  oppressed? 

Was  it  not  while  he  was  still  a  modest  parlia- 
mentary reporter,  and  because  he  was  the  echo 
of  all  sorts  of  sorrows  and  iniquities,  that  he  be- 
gan to  draw  up  his  simple,  vehement,  terrible 
indictment  against  powerful  but  inert  person- 


44  CHARLES  DICKENS 

ages  and  solemn  but  ineffective  institutions,  like 
the  rhetoric  of  far  too  great  a  number  of  poli- 
ticians? 

And  it  is  precisely  this  great  novelist  and 
educator  in  whon>  the  spirit  of  caricature  tends 
to  unite  more  and  more  with  the  spirit  of  re- 
form and  with  a  very  human  creed  of  justice 
and  charity. 

Thus  our  young  Charles  continued  to  win 
distinction  in  his  arduous  calling  of  short-hand 
reporter.  His  maternal  uncle,  who  for  some 
years  had  been  editor  of  The  Mirror  of  Parlia- 
ment, offered  him  the  same  position  that  he  was 
then  filling  on  the  True  Sun;  so  that,  at  the  age 
of  twenty,  he  was  earning  between  eighty  and 
a  hundred  dollars  a  month,  at  the  cost  of  con- 
siderable but  not  uncongenial  toil.  In  point  of 
fact,  he  acquired  a  certain  reputation  in  his  own 
circle,  which  chose  to  extol  his  professional  abil- 
ity. 

At  all  events,  in  1825,  it  earned  him  a  place, 
with  analogous  duties,  on  an  important  paper, 
the  Morning  Chronicle,  where  he  succeeded  in 


OFFICE  BOY,  ETC.  45 

covering  his  assignments  only  at  the  cost  of 
limitless  activity. 

To  be  sure,  he  was  generously  recompensed. 
When  he  was  obliged  to  go  to  various  widely 
separated  spots,  to  take  notes  of  political 
gatherings,  the  expense  bills  which  he  handed 
in  to  the  worthy  managers  of  the  Morning 
Chronicle  were  not  even  disputed  ;  for  instance, 
six  different  repairs  to  his  post-chaise  for  a 
journey  of  six  miles,  or  the  cost  of  cleaning  a 
cloak  that  was  covered  with  candle  grease  be- 
cause he  was  obliged  to  write  in  his  carriage  at 
night  while  the  horses  were  galloping. 

Dickens's  biographers,  both  English  and 
French,  have  all  insisted  upon  the  exhausting 
nature  of  a  reporter's  life,  and  notably  M. 
Hervier  in  his  excellent  work  upon  a  writer 
whose  character  attracts  us  no  less  than  his 
novels. 

Here  is  what  Dickens  himself  subsequently 
said  upon  this  subject  : 

"I  have  often  transcribed  for  the  printer, 
from  my  shorthand   notes,    important   public 


46  CHARLES  DICKENS 

speeches  in  which  the  strictest  accurac}^  was  re- 
quired, and  a  mistake  in  which  would  have 
been  to  a  young  man  severely  compromising, 
writing  on  the  palm  of  my  hand,  by  the  light 
of  a  dark  lantern,  in  a  post-chaise  and  four,  gal- 
loping through  a  wild  country,  and  through  the 
dead  of  night.  .  .  .  The  very  last  time  I 
was  at  Exeter  I  strayed  into  the  castle  yard 
there,  to  identify,  for  the  amusement  of  a 
friend,  the  spot  on  which  I  once  'took,'  as  we 
used  to  call  it,  an  election  speech  of  Lord  John 
Russell,  at  the  Devon  contest,  in  the  midst  of 
a  lively  fight  maintained  by  all  the  vagabonds 
in  that  division  of  the  county,  and  under  a  pelt- 
ing rain.  ...  I  have  worn  my  knees  by 
writing  on  them,  on  the  old  back  row  of  the  old 
gallery  of  the  old  House  of  Commons  ;  and  I  have 
worn  my  feet  by  standing  to  write  in  a  prepos- 
terous pen,  in  the  old  House  of  Lords,  where  we 
used  to  be  huddled  together  like  so  many  sheep. 
.  .  .  Returning  home  from  exciting  political 
meetings  in  the  country  to  the  writing  press  in 
London,  I  do  verily  believe  that  I  have  been 


OFFICE  BOY,  ETC.  47 

upset  in  almost  every  description  of  vehicle 
known  in  this  country.  I  have  been,  in  my 
time,  belated  on  miry  by-roads,  towards  the 
small  hours,  forty  or  fifty  miles  from  London, 
in  a  wheelless  carriage,  with  exhausted  horses 
and  drunken  coach  boys,  and  have  got  back  in 
time  for  publication." 

Desirous  of  handing  down  to  his  critics  and 
to  posterity  whatever  it  was  his  duty  to  leave 
to  them,  and  nothing  more,  Charles  Dickens  de- 
cided, on  a  certain  day  of  depression,  at  his 
Gad's  Hill  home,  to  destroy  a  considerable 
quantity  of  papers.  We  have  the  proof  of  this 
in  a  note  which  he  addressed  to  one  of  his 
friends  : 

^^I  observe  day  by  day  the  abuse  that  is  made 
of  confidential  letters.  They  are  printed  for  a 
public  that  has  no  concern  with  them.  That  is 
why,  a  short  time  ago,  I  built  a  great  fire  on 
my  grounds  and  burned  all  the  letters  in  my 
possession.  At  present  I  destroy  all  that  I  re- 
ceive aside  from  business  letters.  In  this  way 
I  can  rest  tranquil." 


48  CHARLES  DICKENS 

Without  wishing  to  dwell  upon  the  defects 
or  short-comings  of  great  men,  and  without  any 
intention  of  entering  upon  useless  inquiries  and 
debatable  interpretations,  it  is  permissible  for 
men  of  letters  to  express  regret  for  hecatombs 
of  this  nature. 

Fortunately,  John  Forster — who,  like  Dick- 
ens, was  on  the  staff  of  the  True  Sun — did  not 
fail  to  preserve  the  correspondence  addressed  to 
him  for  upwards  of  forty  years  by  this  deeply 
beloved  and  deeply  admired  friend.  On  the 
other  hand,  we  find  here  and  there  documents 
which  are  not  always  in  themselves  sufficient 
to  enlighten  us  regarding  the  intimate  and  emo- 
tional life  of  this  tender-hearted  novelist. 

We  have  already  remarked  elsewhere  that 
one  must  be  careful  not  to  take  the  confessions 
of  David  Copperfield  too  literally,  and  that  in 
reading  such  a  book  as  this^  containing  so  many 
personal  impressions,  it  is  generally  necessary 
to  make  allowances  for  the  romance  of  fiction 
and  the  various  exigencies  of  detail. 

It  is  quite  evident,  for  example,  that  the  frail, 


OFFICE  BOY,  ETC.  49 

pale  mother  of  Davy,  and  the  slave  of  her  sec- 
ond husband,  has  nothing  in  common  with  the 
mother  of  Charles  Dickens. 

In  many  cases,  owing  to  the  silence  of  the 
writer,  and  the  habitual  discretion  and  reserve 
of  English  authors,  we  are  reduced  to  hypothe- 
ses. And  such  hypotheses  are  likely  to  be  either 
too  timid  or  too  adventurous.  Nevertheless  we 
may  be  enlightened  upon  certain  points  by  tes- 
timony that  is  not  only  convincing  but  of  a 
really  compelling  interest. 

In  reading  David  Copperfield,  one  is  espe- 
cially struck  with  the  frivolous  and  delicious 
charm,  somewhat  affected  and  wholly  captivat- 
ing, of  dainty  Dora,  the  hero's  first  wife,  his 
child-wife. 

It  is  easy  to  divine  (and  Mr.  J.  C.  Anderson 
has  stated  that  in  1857  everyone  was  agreed 
upon  this  point)  that  Dickens  had  intended  to 
draw  a  more  or  less  close  picture  of  his  wife  in 
the  person  of  the  serious  Agnes,  the  sensible 
second  wife  of  Davy,  too  sensible  perhaps,  and 
at  the  same  time  too  lacking  in  sentiment. 


50  CHARLES  DICKENS 

But  how  about  Dora,  little  Dora,  who  could 
do  nothing  but  play  with  her  dog,  and  sing  and 
wear  shepherdess  hats  and  die? 

There  are  too  many  pretty  touches,  the  pic- 
ture of  her  is  too  lovingly  composed  not  to  have 
had  its  replica  in  real  life.  And,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  Dora  was  not  merely  a  pretty  creation  of 
genius;  she  really  lived.  And,  what  is  more, 
she  lived  long  enough  for  Dickens  to  write  to 
her  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century  after  the  close 
of  their  idyll.  But,  instead  of  anticipating,  let 
us  hasten  to  add  that  the  idyll  in  question  is 
altogether  most  charmingly  idyllic,  yet,  at  the 
same  time,  so  far  as  the  great  and  unhappy 
novelist  was  concerned,  profoundly  dramatic. 
There  are  sobs  and  tears  and  quivering  nerves 
in  his  books,  because  there  had  been  the  same 
in  his  own  life. 

Dora  was  not  known  as  Dora,  but  as  Maria 
Beadnell.  She  was  the  daughter  of  a  banker; 
she  had  two  sisters,  and  she  lived  in  London, 
in  the  City,  No.  2  Lombard  Street. 

Let  us  put  aside  the  delicate  vision,  furnished 


OFFICE  BOY,  ETC.  51 

by  the  novel,  and  let  us  see  instead  what  took 
place  in  reality. 

Charles  Dickens  was  then  nineteen  years  old, 
and  had  entered  upon  his  career  as  stenogra- 
pher and  reporter,  fairly  creditably  for  that 
matter.  This  was  in  the  year  1834.  He  had 
formed  a  friendship  with  a  bank  clerk,  Kolle 
by  name.  The  latter  introduced  him  to  the 
Beadnell  family. 

Charles,  who  was  good-looking  and  bore  an 
air  of  distinction,  had  no  sooner  seen  Maria 
Beadnell  than  he  fell  in  love  with  her  and  pro- 
ceeded to  pay  court  to  her  with  much  ardour 
and  tenderness.  The  Beadnells  were  by  no 
means  overjoyed  at  this  pretty  love  affair. 
They  possessed  considerable  means,  and  their 
one  thought  was  to  live. beyond  the  reach  of 
material  cares.  Unquestionably,  Charles  cut  a 
good  figure,  and  he  had  all  sorts  of  brilliant 
quaUties.  He  might,  perhaps,  make  his  way  in 
the  world.  But  what  guarantee  could  a  young 
man  of  his  years  offer?  His  position  as  a  re- 
porter was  insecure  and  not  to  be  considered. 


52  CHARLES  DICKENS 

The  future?  No  one  could  predict  the  future. 
Besides,  Maria  was  extremely  attractive;  she 
might  well  aspire  to  a  far  better  match. 

Like  the  worldly-wise  parents  that  they  were, 
they  decided  to  send  Maria  to  France  for  a 
time  to  finish  her  education  in  Paris.  There  is 
reason  to  believe  that  Maria's  heart  was  not 
untroubled  by  Charles's  poetic  avowals.  He 
himself  was  seriously  in  love  and  desperately 
unhappy.  He  remained  in  London,  but  he 
could  not  forget  her — and  he  never  would.  This 
early  idyll  is  either  disregarded  or  lightly 
dismissed — a  big  mistake  in  either  case. 

Maria  returned  to  England.  Her  parents 
kept  a  watchful  eye  upon  her.  But  why  should 
she  not  renew  the  romance  with  her  young 
lover?  She  loved  him  after  her  own  fashion, 
which  included  nothing  very  profound  or  pas- 
sionate. Undoubtedly,  in  her  young  and 
pretty  eyes,  it  was  little  more  than  a  play, 
a  pleasant  flirtation.  And  all  the  more  so — 
since  secrets  are  always  delightful — because  she 
carried  on  a  clandestine  correspondence  with 


OFFICE  BOY,  ETC.  53 

Charles,  thanks  to  Kolle,  who  was  free  to  visit 
her  home  in  Lombard  Street  both  formally  and 
informally,  and  had  every  hope  of  marrying  one 
of  her  sisters,  as  he  subsequently  did. 

The  pretty  secret  of  this  correspondence  is 
revealed  to  us  in  the  following  note  written  to 
Kolle  by  young  Dickens  and  published  by  Mr. 
Percy  Fitzgerald,  one  of  his  best  informed 
biographers  : 

^T  have  been  asked,  in  a  line  which  reached 
me  this  morning,  to  send  my  reply  by  the  same 
means  as  was  employed  for  my  former  letter. 
So  I  take  the  liberty  of  asking  you  if  you  will 
be  so  kind  as  to  deliver  the  note  herewith  en- 
closed w^hen  you  go  today  to  pay  your  usual 
afternoon  call." 

Yes,  it  was  a  very  simple  and  fervent  love 
that  Dickens  felt  for  Maria  Beadnell.  His  let- 
ters, full  of  ardent  declarations,  recently  pub- 
lished with  lengthy  comments  by  Professor 
George  P.  Baker,  of  Harvard  University,  leave 
no  doubt  upon  that  score. 

We  must  make  allowance  for  the  ardour  and 


54  CHARLES  DICKENS 

frankness  of  youth  ;  but  listen  to  what  he  says 
a  little  later  : 

"I  have  never  loved,  and  I  never  can  love, 
any  human  creature  breathing  but  yourself. 
.  .  .  The  love  I  now  tender  you  is  as  pure 
and  as  lasting  as  at  any  period  of  our  former 
correspondence.  .  .  .  My  feeling  on  07ie  sub- 
ject was  early  roused  ;  it  has  been  strong,  and  it 
will  be  lasting." 

We  hardly  have  a  right  to  laugh  at  these 
youthful  vows,  and  we  shall  soon  see  why. 

Maria's  parents  had  meanwhile  become 
aware  of  the  secret  courtship,  and  apparently 
they  intervened  with  considerable  energy  and 
compelled  their  daughter  to  break  it  off 
squarely,  brutally,  definitely.  She  gave  him  his 
dismissal  in  a  cold  little  letter  full  of  re- 
proaches. Who  knows  whether  her  family  did 
not  collaborate  in  it? 

Charles  kept  aloof.  Miss  Maria  Beadnell  be- 
came the  wife  of  Henry  Louis  Winter,  a  wealthy 
merchant.  We  shall  see  that  Dickens  was  soon 
to  marry  in  his  turn,  and  that  this  marriage  was 


HOUSES   MADE   FAMOUS   BY  DICKENS 

Above:  Dickens'  birthplace,  in  the  poorer  quarter  of  Portsea. — Doughty 

Street,  his  residence  from  1837  to  1840,  where  the  celebrated  Pickicick 

Papers  were  written.     Bclow:    "The  Old  Curiosity  Shop,"  which  he 

immortalized  in  the  novel  of  the  same  name. 


OFFICE  BOY,  ETC.  55 

not  destined  to  be  altogether  a  happy  one.  If 
Maria-Dora  was  too  frivolous,  Catherine- Agnes 
was  destined  to  prove,  as  some  one  has  re- 
marked, too  methodical. 

Have  we  attached  undue  importance  to 
this  idyll,  or  are  we  sure  that  Dickens  drew 
an  idealized  portrait  of  his  early  love  when  he 
drew  that  of  Dora?  Yes,  absolutely  sure,  for 
Dickens  himself  said  so,  in  a  letter  written  to 
Mrs.  Winter  herself,  more  than  twenty  years 
later. 

In  1855  he  received  a  letter  from  Mrs.  Win- 
ter, in  which  she  evoked  the  memories  of  youth. 
The  famous  novelist's  reply  betrays  a  poignant 
yet  controlled  emotion,  quite  apparent  behind 
its  proud  and  dignified  tone.  It  seems  that  one 
evening,  while  the  illustrious  author  of  David 
Copperfield  was  reading  at  a  corner  of  his 
fireside,  a  bundle  of  letters  was  laid  upon  his 
table.  He  was  in  the  habit  of  receiving  hun- 
dreds of  them  every  day.  He  cast  a  glance 
over  the  envelopes.  Not  one  of  these  letters 
bore  the  handwriting  of  a  friend.    He  laid  them 


56  CHARLES  DICKENS 

aside,  in  order  to  resume  his  tranquil  reading. 
But  his  mind  wandered.  Why  should  it  do  so? 
After  all  the  years  that  had  slipped  away,  his 
thoughts  winged  their  way  back  to  the  days  of 
his  youth.  He  was  surprised  at  himself.  Noth- 
ing in  his  surroundings,  nor  in  what  he  had 
been  reading,  could  explain  these  flocking 
memories.  Suddenly  a  suspicion  seized  him. 
He  looked  over  his  letters  once  more.  And  he 
felt  a  thrill.  But  let  him  tell  it  in  his  own 
words  : 

"...  suddenly  the  remembrance  of  your 
hand  came  upon  me  with  an  influence  that  I 
cannot  express  to  you.  Three  or  four  and 
twenty  years  vanished  like  a  dream,  and  I 
opened  it  with  the  touch  of  my  young  friend 
David  Copperfield  when  he  was  in  love.  .  .  . 
I  have  forgotten  nothing  of  those  old  times. 
They  are  just  as  still  and  plain  and  clear  as  if 
I  had  never  been  in  a  crowd  since  and  had 
never  seen  or  heard  my  own  name  out  of  my 
own  house.  .  .  .  You  so  belong  to  the  days 
when  the  qualities  that  have  done  me  most  good 


OFFICE  BOY,  ETC.  57 

since  were  growing  in  my  boyish  heart  that  I 
cannot  end  my  answer  to  you  lightly.  The  as- 
sociations my  memory  has  with  you  make  your 
letter  more — I  w^ant  a  word — invest  it  wdth  a 
more  immediate  address  to  me  than  such  a  let- 
ter could  have  from  anybody  else." 

Upon  reflection  we  realise  that  the  foregoing 
is  almost  too  literary,  it  has  a  certain  sugges- 
tion of  stage  effects.  Yet  perhaps  it  means  that 
he  really  did  suffer,  that  he  was  still  as  keenly 
sensitive  as  ever!  How  cruelly  wounded  he 
must  have  been!  Who  would  dare  to  suggest 
that  he  had  felt  nothing  more  than  a  vague 
liking  for  that  Maria  who  had  been  the  dream 
of  his  twentieth  year,  the  exquisite  and  futile 
Dora  of  his  novel? 

So,  after  this  long  separation,  the  correspond- 
ence was  resumed.  Could  it  be  that  Dickens 
was  anxious  to  convince  himself  that  he  had 
not  changed  since  the  old  days?  Did  he  not 
have  a  secret  longing  to  quiver  with  the  old 
emotions  after  so  many,  many  years,  as  he  bent 
over  a  love  that  was  forever  quenched,  above 


58  CHARLES  DICKENS 

a  flame  that  was  smothered  under  ashes?  Yes, 
beyond  question,  Dora  was  she,  and  he  was 
David  Copperfield. 

"People  used  to  say  to  me  how  pretty  all  that 
was,  and  how  fanciful  it  was,  and  how  elevated 
it  was  above  the  little  foolish  loves  of  very 
young  men  and  w^omen.  But  they  little  thought 
what  reason  I  had  to  know  it  was  true,  and 
nothing  more  nor  less." 

Attention!  Here  we  have  the  confession  of 
his  love,  a  great  cry  from  the  depths  of  his 
heart: 

"Whatever  of  fancy,  romance,  energy,  pas- 
sion, aspiration  and  determination  belong  to 
me,  I  have  never  separated  and  never  shall 
separate  from  the  hard-hearted  little  woman — 
you — whom  it  is  nothing  to  say  I  would  have 
died  for,  with  the  greatest  alacrity!  .  .  . 
It  is  a  matter  of  perfect  certainty  to  me  that  I 
began  to  fight  my  way  out  of  poverty  and  ob- 
scurity, with  one  perpetual  idea  of  you.  .  .  . 
My  entire  devotion  to  you,  and  the  wasted 
tenderness  of  those  hard  years  which  I  have 


OFFICE  BOY,  ETC.  59 

ever  since  half  dreaded  to  recall,  made  so  deep 
an  impression  on  me  that  I  refer  to  it  a  habit 
of  suppression  which  now  belongs  to  me  and 
which  I  know  is  no  part  of  my  original  nature. 
.  .  .  These  are  things  that  I  have  locked  up 
in  my  own  heart  and  that  I  never  thought  to 
bring  out  any  more.  ,  .  .  The  dream  which 
I  lived  in  did  me  good,  refined  my  heart  and 
made  me  patient  and  persevering.  .  .  . 
And  if  the  dream  were  all  of  you — as  God 
knows  it  was — how  can  I  receive  a  confidence 
from  you  and  return  it,  and  make  a  feint  of 
blotting  all  this  out?" 

Mrs.  Winter  and  Dickens  continued  to  ex- 
change letters,  but  without  meeting.  Mr.  Win- 
ter's business  affairs  were  going  badly,  and 
ended  in  bankruptcy.  She  turned  to  the  friend 
of  long  ago,  the  friend  for  always.  What  a 
drama! 

He  had  not  yet  seen  her,  but  he  still  pictured 
her  as  she  used  to  be  in  the  hours  of  their  ex- 
quisite idyll.  She  protested,  she  assured  him 
that  she  was  old,  ugly,  toothless;  he  could  not 


60  CHARLES  DICKENS 

believe  hen.  The  house  in  Lombard  Street,  the 
very  bricks  and  mortar,  were  crumbUng  into 
dust.  But  not  she,  the  well  beloved!  Let  us 
cite  one  more  passage  from  Dickens  himself. 
Nothing  is  more  touching,  as  Pascal  has  said, 
than  to  find  a  man  inside  of  an  author  : 

''I  see  you  in  a  sort  of  raspberry-coloured 
dress  with  a  little  black  trimming  at  the  top — 
black  velvet  it  seems  to  be  made  of — cut  into 
Vandykes — an  immense  number  of  Vandykes — 
with  my  boyish  heart  pinned  like  a  captured 
butterfly  on  every  one  of  them." 

That  is  Dickens  at  his  biggest  and  best,  in 
his  very  highest  manner.  Emotion,  in  this  ad- 
mirable writer,  is  veiled  under  picturesque  de- 
tail. 

The  end  of  this  love  story  is  quite  melan- 
choly. Charles  Dickens  at  last  meets  Dora 
again,  or  rather,  alas,  not  Dora,  but  Mrs.  Win- 
ter. And  he  sees  her  as  she  is,  and  far  different 
from  the  young  girl  of  his  glorious  and  vanished 
dream. 

Henceforward  Dora  is  transformed.    She  be- 


OFFICE  BOY,  ETC.  61 

comes  Flora  in  Little  Dorrit,  for  Mr.  Casby  is 
none  other  than  Maria's  father,  Mr.  Beadnell, 
and  Dickens  himself  figures  in  the  mournful 
character  of  Clenman: 

"No  childhood,  no  youth,  except  one  remem- 
brance ;  that  one  remembrance  proved  only  that 
day  to  be  a  piece  of  folly  .  .  .  while  all 
that  was  hard  and  stern  in  his  recollection  re- 
mained reality  on  being  proved.  The  one  ten- 
der recollection  of  his  experience  would  not  bear 
the  same  test  and  melted  away." 

Let  us  return  to  the  youthful  Dickens,  the 
clever  and  charming  Dickens,  earning  his  five 
guineas  a  week  by  shorthand  reporting. 

He  was  in  love,  he  was  sensitive,  he  was  striv- 
ing to  do  well  what  he  was  doing,  but  he  was 
also  ambitious.  He  dressed  in  a  fastidious^  al- 
most dandified  fashion,  and  he  had  very  hand- 
some blue  eyes.  He  delighted  in  animation  and 
movement.  But  he  was  able,  at  the  same  time, 
to  concentrate  his  thoughts  and  consider  the 
means  by  which  he  might  attain  his  goal: 
namely,  literary  fame. 


62  CHARLES  DICKENS 

There  is  good  reason  for  saying  that  the  most 
distinguished  English  writers  of  today  have 
been  able,  like  Rudyard  Kipling,  to  create 
only  a  few  types,  or  like  Conan  Doyle,  only 
one.  What,  for  instance,  is  a  Watson  along- 
side of  a  Sherlock  Holmes?  Dickens,  on  the 
contrary,  had  the  marvellous  talent  of  breath- 
ing the  breath  of  life  into  all  his  characters,  of 
giving  them  all,  even  the  vaguest  of  them,  a 
salient  individuality  which  we  remember  and 
which  imprints  itself,  indelibly,  at  the  first 
stroke. 

Let  us  take,  for  example,  David  Copperfield. 
David  is  the  centre  of  the  story,  everything 
leads  back  to  him,  and  nevertheless  Aunt  Betsy 
is  inimitably  eccentric,  Dick  is  a  refreshing  fool, 
Vrioh  Heep  a  scamp  of  the  first  order,  Steer- 
forth  a  man  sure  of  himself.  Each  character 
has  his  own  special  intensity.  The  carrier 
Barkis,  the  fisherman  Peggotty,  and  old  Mrs. 
Gummige,  sitting  in  her  chair  and  mourning 
for  her  "old  'un,"  remain  enduring  types.  A 
few  gestures  and  a  few  words  suffice; 


OFFICE  BOY,  ETC.  63 

Accordingly,  we  need  not  be  surprised  to  see 
Dickens  make  his  début  in  literature  with 
essays,  portraits,  suggestive  episodes,  and 
sketches.  He  remained,  throughout  his  life, 
even  in  his  most  vigorous  and  crowded  volumes, 
an  amazing  master  of  the  silhouette  and  the 
episodic  detail. 

Almost  from  boyhood  he  practised  his  pow- 
ers in  these  rapid,  yet  vigorous  pen  pictures  of 
men  and  things.  He  strove  to  catch  the  very 
soul  of  his  people,  as  he  did  the  soul  of  his 
landscapes,  in  some  significant  aspect.  It  was 
in  such  fashion,  for  example,  that  he  drew  a 
living  portrait  of  his  father's  barber,  who  had 
a  mania  for  criticising  the  military  strategy  of 
Napoleon:  Under  the  same  circumstances,  and 
in  Napoleon's  place,  he  would  have  done  this, 
and  he  would  have  done  that,  and  he  would 
have  conquered,  parbleu! 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  are  in  Dickens  a 
whole  collection  of  maniacs — and  one  may  even 
end  by  wearying  of  the  monotony  of  their  ges- 
tures and  their  words.    But  it  all  remains  pro- 


64  CHARLES  DICKENS 

foundly  human.  Have  we  not,  every  one  of  us, 
our  own  manias?  Our  own  manias  may  be  un- 
important, or  agreeable,  or  odious.  But  they 
play  a  part,  even  in  our  slightest  actions,  and 
yet  we  scarcely  ever  become  aware  of  them.. 

One  evening,  in  1833,  while  the  bells  were 
ringing  out  from  a  neighbouring  church  tower, 
a  man  glided  furtively  through  the  shadows  of 
Fleet  Street,  London.  Suddenly  he  stopped, 
and  stood  trembling  before  a  letter  box.  Then 
he  glanced  around  him  with  profound  anxiety. 
He  hesitated  a  few  moments.  What  was  about 
to  happen?  What  crime  was  about  to  be  com- 
mitted? The  man  remained  silent  and  unde- 
cided. He  held  in  his  feverish  hand  some  ob- 
ject— which  he  ended  by  depositing  in  the  box, 
after  which  he  fled  away  like  a  thief. 

In  order  to  reassure  the  reader,  let  us  at  once 
give  the  key  to  this  melodramatic  enigma.  We 
have  just  related  Dickens's  first  entry  into  the 
literature  of  England  and  of  the  world  at  large. 

Timid,  excessively  impressionable,  and  at  the 
same  time  full  of  energy,  and  animated  by  an 


OFFICE  BOY,  ETC.  65 

ardent  and  implacable  will  (all  of  which  may 
easily  be  combined  in  one  and  the  same  tem- 
perament), the  young  man  had  furtively  de- 
posited in  the  letter  box  of  the  Old  Monthly 
Magazine,  not  the  first  of  his  Sketches,  but  the 
one  which  he  thought  would  be  of  the  most  di- 
rect interest  to  the  public.  He  had  attempted 
to  gather  together  a  number  of  ironic  and  judi- 
cial observations  in  a  loosely  episodic  form,  un- 
der the  title  of  A  Dinner  in  Poplar  WalL 

It  should  be  noted  that  Dickens  began  his 
series  of  popular  works,  popular  in  every  sense 
of  the  term,  and  more  particularly  in  the  best 
sense,  by  picturing  people  and  scenes  of  humble 
life,  the  poor  and  needy  lower  classes.  He 
found  among  them,  and  he  continued  to  find, 
ceaseless^,  to  the  very  end,  all  the  essential 
and  unforeseen  elements  of  farcical  or  senti- 
mental comedies,  and  of  picturesque  dramas. 

What  elation  the  young  writer  must  have 
felt  when  he  saw  his  prose  printed  for  the  first 
time  in  a  magazine  of  good  standing,  and  fol- 


66  CHARLES  DICKENS 

lowed  by  his  mysterious  pseudonym,  Boz, 
which  was  not  slow  in  creating  a  sensation  ! 

The  lively  vein  of  caricature  in  Boz  attracted 
immediate  attention,  because  it  was  combined 
with  an  audacity  of  observation  and  a  spirit  of 
minute  detail,  even  in  the  most  trivial  sketchs 
Does  this  mean  that  Dickens  revealed  himself 
at  once,  with  a  single  leap,  to  the  full  extent  of 
his  mature  powers?    No,  not  by  any  means. 

He  was  related  at  the  start  to  that  line  of 
humorous  story-tellers,  lovers  of  buffoonery 
and  practical  jokes,  who  swiftly  catch  the  read- 
er's interest  by  presenting  to  him,  wrapped  up 
in  some  diverting  episode,  preferably  somewhat 
burlesque  and  trivial,  some  corner  of  real  life, 
ugly  or  attractive  as  the  case  might  be,  but 
caught  in  full  swing  and  movement. 

Accordingly,  it  was  with  real  tears  of  joy  and 
an  indescribable  emotion  that  young  Charles 
Dickens  took  his  first  steps  along  the  brilliant 
avenue  of  fame. 

Naturally  the  Old  Monthly  Magazine,  which 
had  unhesitatingly  opened  its  columns  to  him 


OFFICE  BOY,  ETC.  67 

and  continued  to  accept  Sketches  by  Boz,  was 
careful  not  to  shower  him  with  gold,  or  even 
silver,  or  any  other  form  of  currency.  Boz  was 
lively,  Boz  was  amusing,  Boz  was  witty,  with  a 
little  vein  of  somewhat  vague  sentimentality. 
He  found  favour.  It  is  easy  to  conceive  that 
the  excellent  shorthand  reporter  of  the  Morn- 
ing Chronicle  took  a  very  special  interest  in  the 
impatient,  elated,  feverish  author  of  the 
Sketches.  Besides,  when  Charles  Dickens 
sought  for  serious  employment  and  adequate 
pay  on  an  important  paper,  it  was  for  the  ex- 
press purpose  of  placing  himself  in  a  position 
to  show  what  he  was  capable  of  doing  and  what 
he  wanted  to  do.  His  established  connection 
was  singularly  favourable  to  his  growing  liter- 
ary ambitions.  Accordingly,  Dickens  aided  his 
best  friend,  Boz,  to  publish  his  subsequent  es- 
says in  the  Evening  Chronicle,  which  was  an 
afternoon  edition  of  his  own  paper. 

Boz  puzzled  the  public,  amused  his  col- 
leagues, interested  writers  who  appreciated  an 
alert  and  attractive  form,  and  delighted  lovers 


68  CHARLES  DICKENS 

of  wholesome  jollity — and  they  are  very  numer- 
ous in  London,  as  they  are  throughout  Eng- 
land. 

Boz  did  not  seek  for  the  impossible.  He  was 
readily  contented  with  rather  commonplace 
plots,  provided  they  were  humorous.  Here  is 
a  typical  case:  Horatio  Sparkins,  clerk  in  a 
draper's  shop,  is  full  of  practical  jokes.  He 
passes  himself  off  as  an  authentic  lord  to  a 
worthy,  middle-class  family  with  an  immoder- 
ate fondness  for  pompous  and  sonorous  titles. 
But  in  the  end  the  real  social  position  of  the 
trickster  is  discovered. 

It  is  worth  while  to  remember  that  Dickens 
began  to  write  while  Louis-Philippe  was  on  the 
throne  of  France.  Dickens  also,  like  Henri 
Monnier,  was  destined  to  picture  many  a  lu- 
dicrous bourgeois  type,  innumerable  varieties 
of  British  Joseph  Prudhommes.  It  was  all  very 
well,  so  long  as  they  were  content  to  be  merely 
stupid,  but  some  of  them  were  capable  also  of 
being  malevolent.  Through  the  sketch  and  the 
anecdote,   Dickens  was   advancing   along   the 


OFFICE  BOY,  ETC.  69 

path  of  impassioned  and  virulent  satire  of  man- 
ners. What  matters  a  touch  of  vulgarity,  if  one 
must  follow  the  author  to  the  end,  and  if  the 
truth  of  detail  demands  it? 

The  real  Molière,  the  philosophic  creator  of 
Le  Misanthrope  and  Le  Tartufe,  may  have  be- 
trayed himself  much  earlier,  in  certain  frag- 
ments of  some  farce,  or  some  episodic  comedy 
of  intrigue.  In  like  manner,  Dickens  was  des- 
tined to  emerge  from  Boz. 

Meanwhile  Boz  was  very  widely  read.  An 
influential  journalist,  Hogarth  by  name,  who 
held  the  position  of  managing  editor  of  the 
Evening  Chronicle,  widely  proclaimed  the 
merits  of  Dickens's  brilliant  literary  début. 

Boz  received  a  salary  of  seven  guineas  a 
week;  consequently  he  earned  more  than  his 
excellent  friend,  the  stenographer,  but  he  gave 
him  all  of  it,  because  he  owed  it  all  to  him. 

Let  us  make  a  brief  calculation:  7  guineas, 
that  is  to  say,  147  shillings  per  week,  or  ap- 
proximately $157  per  month,  takes  us,  to- 
gether with  this  charming  and  distinguished 


70  CHARLES  DICKENS 

young  man,  rather  far  from  the  sickly  and  un- 
happy lad  in  the  gloomy  blacking  warehouse, 
sadly  but  rapidly  capping  the  pots  and  pasting 
on  the  labels,  at  a  salary  of  six  shillings  a  week 
— not  quite  seven  dollars  a  month  ! 

Yet  the  time  was  coming  when  Charles  Dick- 
ens would  be  offered  five  thousand  dollars  for  a 
Christmas  tale  only  a  few  pages  in  length. 


CHAPTER   III 

IN  WHICH  WE  MEET  THE  FANTASTIC  PERSONAGE 
OF     MR.     PICKWICK — THE     ROMANCE     OF    A 

NOVELIST — VICTORY  AND  MOURNING SOME 

LITERARY  PIRATES 

COME  right  in,  ladies  and  gentlemen.  Here 
you  will  find  enjoyment  and  hope  and 
consolation.  For  you  are  about  to  be  initiated 
into  the  singular,  strange,  bizarre,  extraordi- 
nary, abnormal,  prodigious,  naïve,  formidable 
and  truculent  adventures  of  Mr.  Pickwick.  The 
honourable  Mr.  Pickwick,  whom  I  have  the 
pleasure  of  presenting  to  you,  is  not  only  a 
clown  and  a  marionette.  He  is  not  only  a  man 
and  a  simpleton.  He  is  a  sort  of  hero  and  demi- 
god. You  think  perhaps  that  the  good-natured, 
fat  old  fellow  is  a  man  of  experience,  that  the 
old  stupid  is  a  rogue  and  a  knave,  that  he  may 
be  grotesque,  but  that  he  is  clever  enough  to 

see  through  Mrs.  Bardell's  hysterics  and  the 

71 


72  CHARLES  DICKENS 

tricks  of  that  rascally  Jingle,  that  he  may  fall 
into  traps  and  make  acquaintance  with  the 
damp  straw  of  jails,  that  he  will  be  kindly,  stu- 
pid, happy  and  sublime,  that  he  will  be  beaten 
and  belaboured  and  yet  content;  in  short,  that 
he  will  be  Sancho  Panza  and  Don  Quixote  in 
one.  You  are  right  and  you  are  wrong.  Ex- 
tremes meet.  Truth  and  error  touch  elbows. 
The  enormous  spectacles  of  the  worthy  Mr. 
Pickwick  will  often  see  life  such  as  it  might  be, 
rather  than  such  as  it  is.  But  what  difference 
does  it  make?  His  credulity  is  like  faith;  it  is 
capable  of  overturning  mountains.  Mr.  Pick- 
wick is  contented  wherever  he  is,  because  he  is 
amiable.  Be  amiable  like  him,  such  is  the  vir- 
tue that  I  wish  for  you.  In  reading  the  adven- 
tures of  Mr.  Pickwick,  you  will  participate  in  a 
marvellous  feast,  and  you  will  drink  a  nectar 
that  will  give  you  a  simple  and  holy  elation. 
Amen! 

There  is  what  Dickens  might  have  said  to  his 
readers  at  the  outset  of  The  Posthumous  Pa- 
pers of  the  Pickwick  Club, 


MR.  PICKWICK  73 

But  he  did  not  say  it,  and  for  several  dif- 
ferent reasons. 

In  the  first  place,  his  agreement  was  to  write 
Pickwick  in  the  form  of  successive  monthly  in- 
stallments, and  he  did  not  yet  know  who  were 
the  friends  and  enemies  of  his  great  adventurer, 
nor  what  would  be  the  exact  amount  of  punch 
that  he  was  to  absorb,  nor  to  what  startling 
acrobatic  heights  he  would  carry  the  life  of  this 
sportive  superman. 

He  himself  was  otill  unaware  of  all  that  Mr. 
Pickwick  concealed  within  his  portly  person- 
age ;  he  did  not  even  suspect  that  his  hero  was 
on  the  point  of  conquering  all  England  as  eas- 
ily as  Mr.  Winkle  could  crack  his  whip  or  Mr. 
Tupman  give  utterance  to  his  innumerable  in- 
anities. , 

The  truth  is  that  he  was  eager  to  pour  him- 
self out,  measurelessly,  to  the  full  extent  of  his 
vast  capacity  for  joyousness  and  movement, 
for  free  and  intense  life.  The  stage  setting  was 
of  small  importance.  He  never  troubled  him- 
self about  it;  perhaps  he  never  troubled  him- 


74  CHARLES  DICKENS 

self  enough;  to  him  the  essential  thing  was  to 
create  the  marvellous,  the  true,  the  ever  en- 
joyable. 

But  how  did  he  himself  come  to  be  launched 
upon  these  Adventures,  which  might  have 
proved  as  disastrous  to  him  as  to  his  portly 
hero,  Pickwick?  (Assuming  that  he  had  origi- 
nally intended  him  to  be  portly,  a  point  that 
has  not  been  proven.)  This  deserves  to  be  ex- 
plained. 

A  famous  caricaturist,  Seymour,  suggested  to 
his  publishers,  Chapman  and  Hall,  that  he 
should  do  a  volume  of  sketches  for  them  of 
scenes  of  sporting  life,  a  type  in  which  he  ex- 
celled. Being  wide-awake  to  their  own  inter- 
ests, these  publishers  invited  the  cooperation  of 
Boz,  whose  lively  and  fantastic  imagination 
they  felt  sure  would  ably  supplement  that  of 
the  artist;  in  short,  they  proposed  that  Dick- 
ens should  furnish  monthly  installments  of  text 
at  the  rate  of  fourteen  pounds  apiece. 

The  idea  at  the  start  was  to  relate  with  great 
frankness  and  originality  the  deeds  and  exploits 


MR.   PICKWICK  75 

of  the  principal  members  of  a  sort  of  Nimrod 
Club  composed  of  awkward  and  unskilled 
sportsmen. 

Dickens  accepted  the  offer,  for  he  found  the 
remuneration  tempting,  and,  besides,  he  was 
looking  for  an  opportunity  to  show  the  strength 
and  ingenuity  of  his  inventive  powers.  Sev- 
enty dollars  a  month  is  not  by  any  means  to 
be  despised  by  a  young  writer  of  twenty-four, 
who  is  without  private  means,  yet  has  no  inten- 
tion of  continuing  to  waste  his  intellectual  re- 
sources in  the  quality  of  newspaper  reporter, 
and  who,  furthermore,  is  soon  to  acquire  ad- 
ditional responsibilities. 

But  Dickens  had  no  special  fondness  for 
comic  sporting  pictures.  He  thought  that  they 
had  already  been  singularly  overdone,  and  he 
feared  that  he  should  not  find  in  them  an  in- 
spiration of  sufficiently  general  interest.  Ac- 
cordingly, he  sought  for  some  other  idea,  decid- 
ing at  the  same  time  to  retain  at  least  one 
sportsman,    whose    diverting    adventures    he 


76  CHARLES  DICKENS 

might  chronicle.  This  sportsman  was  destined 
to  be  Mr.  Winkle,  the  man  with  the  whip. 

Accordingly  he  continued  his  search,  and, 
with  the  cooperation  of  his  publisher  and  illus- 
trator, he  evolved  the  fertile  idea  of  a  society 
for  exploration  and  travel.  The  already  popu- 
lar author  of  Sketches  was  himself  greatly  de- 
lighted with  the  general  conception  of  a  Pick- 
wick Club,  in  which  his  hero  could  intoxicate 
himself  magnificently  with  his  own  words  and 
acquire  new  energy  through  agreeable  libations, 
in  company  with  his  comrades,  inspired  by  no 
less  generous  a  flame. 

He  had  only  to  launch  him  upon  the  world, 
and  Mr.  Pickwick  would  make  his  own  way. 
He  would  always  make  egregious  blunders,  al- 
ways bungle,  always  misunderstand,  until  his 
very  ineptitude  became  a  sort  of  sovereign  and 
victorious  candor,  and  the  public  ended  by  dis- 
covering inside  their  clay  idol  something  very 
like  a  divinity. 

But  Dickens  did  not  dream  of  this  at  first. 
His  genius  awoke  in  the  process  of  creation. 


MR.   PICKWICK  77 

He  began  by  painting  a  group  of  comic  per- 
sonalities, seen  through  the  prism  of  a  magic 
and  unbridled  fantasy,  capable  of  banishing  the 
thought  of  daily  cares  alike  from  the  rich  and 
the  poor,  the  learned  and  the  ignorant. 

Little  by  little,  he  threw  himself  with  in- 
creasing vehemence  and  concentrated  emotion 
into  this  vast  and  chaotic  farce  ;  he  continually 
crossed  the  border-line  of  buffoonery  and 
Homeric  laughter,  but  often  also  he  touched 
the  highest  note  of  true  comedy  and  the  deepest 
note  of  true  drama. 

His  gift  for  dramatic  action  was  of  enormous 
help  to  him  in  Pickwick.  It  is  necessary  to  re- 
vert continually  to  this  point  and  to  insist  upon 
it.  On  one  occasion  he  amused  himself  by 
dashing  off  a  parody  on  Othello  for  an  amateur 
performance;  and  in  1836,  the  same  year  that 
witnessed  the  glorious  expansion  of  Mr.  Pick- 
wick, he  became  interested  in  the  enterprises  of 
a  certain  theatrical  manager,  Braham,  at  the 
St.  James  Theatre,  and  composed  two  librettos 
for  him  :    The  Strange  Gentleman  and  The  Vil- 


78  CHARLES  DICKENS 

lage  Coquettes.  The  two  pieces,  it  should  be 
added,  were  produced  in  September  and  De- 
cember respectively.  The  composers,  who  were 
destined  to  an  infinitely  greater  obscurity  than 
their  collaborator,  were  a  Mr.  Harley  and  a 
Mr.  Hullah. 

The  appearance  of  Mr.  Pickwick,  who  was 
destined  to  give  a  sudden  and  definite  direction 
to  Charles  Dickens's  literary  career,  and  to  per- 
mit him  to  acquire  fame  and  fortune  within  a 
brief  time,  coincided  with  another  important 
event  in  his  existence,  namely,  his  marriage. 

On  the  second  of  April,  1836,  he  was  married 
to  Catherine  Hogarth,  the  daughter  of  the  jour- 
nalist who  had  encouraged  him  in  his  first  ef- 
forts, and  at  whose  home  he  was  a  constant 
visitor. 

We  shall  not  attempt  to  shed  the  light  of  any 
hitherto  unpublished  details  regarding  the  con- 
jugal life  of  this  celebrated  author.  But  it  is 
at  least  permissible,  without  attempting  to  lift 
the  veil  very  far,  to  try  to  find  some  explana- 
tion of  his  conduct.    We  could  not  bring  our- 


MR.   PICKWICK  79 

selves  to  emulate  the  prudent  silence  of  the  ma- 
jority of  his  biographers,  whose  reserve  com- 
mands respect,  but  at  the  same  time  is  a  little 
humiliating  from  the  critical  point  of  view;  nor 
to  undertake  a  minute  and  profitless  inquiry, 
in  which  we  should  run  the  risk  of  falling  into 
error,  or  at  least  into  a  tangle  of  hazardous 
and  perhaps  blameworthy  conjectures. 

The  facts  are  as  follows:  Dickens  was  mar- 
ried in  1836.  He  and  his  beloved  Kate  led  a 
life  that  may  be  characterised  as  being  at  one 
and  the  same  time  social  and  domestic.  His 
wife  had  two  sisters,  one  of  whom  he  venerated 
like  a  saint,  to  borrow  Mr.  Chesterton's  phrase, 
and  whose  sudden  death  in  the  full  flower  of 
youth  was  so  heavy  a  blow  that  he  expressed  a 
wish  that  he  might  be  buried  with  her,  and 
cherished  the  sad  and  unalterable  memory  of 
her  ever  after  ;  while  the  other  sister,  after  his 
divorce  in  1858,  remained  his  best  friend  to  the 
day  of  his  death. 

It  is  not  unprofitable  to  begin  by  noting,  also 
on  the  authority  of  Mr.  Chesterton,  that  young 


80  CHARLES  DICKENS 

Charles,  poor,  lonely,  and  haunted  by  painful 
memories,  suddenly  found  himself  welcomed  by 
three  young  girls.  It  was  less  a  woman  that  he 
loved  than  love  itself,  the  exquisite  and  wonder- 
ful opportunity  to  love  and  to  be  loved.  Being 
singularly  handsome  in  his  youth,  as  we  may 
easily  convince  ourselves  by  taking  a  glance 
at  Lawrence's  portrait  showing  him  at  the  age 
of  twenty-three,  and  at  the  fashionable  young 
aristocrat  depicted  in  the  sketch  by  the  Count 
d'Orsay,  how  could  he  have  failed  to  be  made 
much  of  in  the  Hogarth  household? 

Mr.  Chesterton  thinks  that  the  young  au- 
thor lost  his  head,  and  that  he  fell  a  victim,  not 
to  first  love,  but  to  a  first  flirtation.  It  is  true 
that  this  critic  makes  no  allusion  to  Miss  Maria 
Beadnell,  and  that,  intent  on  general  ideas, 
he  seems  quite  deliberately  to  have  forgotten 
her.  But  the  banker's  daughter  had  appeared 
to  Charles  Dickens  as  a  sort  of  ideal  creation,  a 
spirit  of  dreams  and  fairyland.  On  the  other 
hand,  he  had  been  received,  and  that,  too,  most 
cordially,  by  the  Hogarths,  received  as  a  jour- 


MR.   PICKWICK  81 

nalist  and  author,  and  soon,  very  soon,  far  too 
soon  perhaps,  as  suitor  for  one  of  the  daughters. 

It  will  never  do  to  forget,  in  any  discussion 
of  Dickens,  his  eminently  impulsive  character, 
which  constituted  his  entire  artistic  strength, 
but  which,  on  the  other  hand,  could  not  protect 
him  from  human  weaknesses.  His  extreme  sen- 
sitiveness was  the  result  of  a  nervous  condi- 
tion which  seemed  to  impel  him  to  play  the 
mountebank  almost  at  the  same  time  as  the 
good  Samaritan.  He  was  incapable  of  being  a 
halfway  optimist  or  pessimist.  He  surrendered 
himself  unreservedly  to  his  emotions,  and  when 
deeply  moved  he  easily  lost  sight  of  actualities. 
He  always  had  far  more  of  the  lyric  poet  and 
romanticist  in  his  nature  than  he  had  of  the 
realist. 

We  have  no  ground  to  complain  of  this  ;  but 
he  himself  was  destined  to  suffer  enormously 
from  this  very  exaltation  to  which  we  chiefly 
owe  the  products  of  his  genius. 

Miss  Catherine  Hogarth,  we  are  told,  al- 
though with  great  dearth  of  detail,  was  small 


82  CHARLES  DICKENS 

of  stature.  She  was  an  agreeable  young  woman, 
with  a  bright  complexion.  A  drawing  by  Dan- 
iel Maclise  depicts  her  in  the  full  ripeness  of 
youth,  imbued  with  a  distinctive  and  penetrat- 
ing charm.  She  had  pretty  eyes  and  lovely  hair, 
arranged  loosely  in  curls  drawn  w^ell  forward, 
after  the  prevailing  style  of  the  time. 

She  had,  it  seems,  a  tendency  towards  stout- 
ness, and  the  one  portrait  that  is  preserved  of 
her  taken  in  full  maturity  pictures  her,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  as  quite  corpulent.  She  seems 
to  have  been  a  serious  and  conscientious 
woman,  rather  than  a  really  tender  one. 

At  the  beginning,  Dickens  prudently  stayed 
on  in  his  bachelor's  apartments,  for  he  had 
made  what  is  called  a  love  match.  The  Ho- 
garths  had  little  or  no  fortune,  as  Dickens  was 
destined  to  discover  on  more  than  one  occasion. 

The  first  number  of  The  Posthumous  Journal 
oj  the  Pickwick  Club  appeared  almost  simul- 
taneously with  the  announcement  of  his  mar- 
riage. Dickens,  finding  himself  embarrassed  by 
the  multiplying  expenses  of  furnishing  a  home. 


MR.   PICKWICK  83 

modest  as  it  was,  found  himself  obliged  to  ask 
his  publishers  for  an  advance.  They  consented 
only  after  considerable  demurring.  The  novel- 
ist was  entitled  to  share  in  the  profits.  But  at 
the  start  the  profits  were  highly  speculative; 
in  fact,  none  at  all  ;  for,  unfortunately,  the  early 
issues  of  Pickwick  did  not  sell  ;  in  fact,  not  over 
four  or  five  hundred  were  sent  to  the  binder's. 
It  was  a  failure,  real  and  complete.  It  might 
become  a  disaster.  Accordingly,  it  is  easy  to 
understand  that  his  publishers  had  hard  work 
to  make  up  their  minds,  in  those  early  months 
of  1836,  to  allow  him  a  humble  increase  of  one 
pound  a  month.  It  should  be  added  that  the 
publication  of  Pickwick  underwent  a  number  of 
vicissitudes,  and  that  fate  seemed  at  first  im- 
placably arrayed  against  it. 

The  illustrator,  Seymour,  who  made  the 
drawings  for  the  opening  installment,  shot  him- 
self with  a  revolver  ;  after  some  trouble,  he  was 
replaced,  first  by  Buss,  and  then  by  H.  K. 
Browne,  who  united  the  efforts  of  his  lively  and 


84  CHARLES  DICKENS 

clever  pencil  with  those  of  Dickens,  under  the 
pseudonym  of  Phiz. 

But  the  young  writer  was  anxious,  almost 
disheartened.  The  failure  of  Pickwick  meant 
the  failure  of  his  hopes,  and  consequently  ruin. 
Accordingly,  he  revealed  the  fertility  of  his  im- 
agination by  evoking  straight  out  of  limbo  the 
inimitable  Sam  Weller,  whom  the  incomparable 
Mr.  Pickwick  had  the  good  fortune  to  encounter 
in  the  court-yard  of  the  White  Hart  Inn,  in  the 
course  of  valiantly  blacking  his  boots. 

Messrs.  Chapman  and  Hall,  as  well  as 
Charles  Dickens,  were  destined  to  share  largely 
in  this  good  fortune  of  the  honourable  Mr. 
Pickwick.  And  how  could  we  do  otherwise 
than  rejoice  with  them?  Sam  Weller  is  a  most 
engaging  personality  and  an  inexhaustible 
source  of  entertainment.  Like  the  faithful 
companion  of  the  Knight  of  the  Doleful  Coun- 
tenance, he  overflows  with  axioms,  proverbs  and 
wise  sayings,  and  gives  them  forth  in  an  un- 
broken stream.  When  Henry  Monnier  invented 
M.  Prudhomme  for  the  delectation  of  the  citi- 


MR.    PICKWICK  85 

zens  of  Paris,  he  overjoyed  them  with  such 
poetic  gems  as  the  following:  'This  sabre  is 
the  most  beautiful  day  of  my  life,"  or,  again, 
'The  chariot  of  the  ocean  is  navigating  above  a 
volcano."  And  with  what  authority  he  de- 
clared : 

''Sir,  that  is  my  opinion,  and  I  share!" 

Sam  Weller  has  no  less  a  degree  of  self- 
assurance  and  exhilarating  force  of  character 
when  he  declaims,  with  unbounded  satisfac- 
tion (and  for  that  matter  is  not  everything  in 
Pickwick  more  or  less  unbounded?)  : 

"Don't  worry,  it's  all  for  my  own  good,  as 
the  school-boy  said  when  he  was  being 
whipped," 

Or  again: 

"Wery  glad  to  see  you,  indeed,  and  hope  our 
acquaintance  may  be  a  long  'un,  as  the  gen'lm'n 
said  to  the  fi'  pun'  note." 

And  all  sorts  of  other  pompous  and  grandilo- 
quent rigmaroles  of  the  same  caliber,  whose 
rather  low  order  of  wit  was  hailed  with  en- 


86  CHARLES  DICKENS 

thusiasm  by  all  London,  and  all  England  be- 
sides. 

Within  a  few  days  Sam  Weller  had  become 
a  personage;  Pickwick,  arrested  and  set  free, 
drowned  and  rescued,  and  always  beatific,  had 
become  the  fashion  and  his  name  served  to 
christen  hats  and  garments,  carriages  and  even 
cigars.  There  were  Pickwick  dress  goods  and 
Pickwick  walking  sticks.  There  was  also  a 
hundred-thousand-dollar  profit  for  the  pub- 
lishers and  fifteen  thousand  for  the  author, 
without  counting  the  annual  revenues,  the 
wide-spread  fame,  and  advantageous  contracts 
for  subsequent  publications. 

While  Pickwick  was  in  everybody's  hands, 
and  the  editions  were  nearing  the  fifty-thou- 
sand mark,  Dickens  proceeded  to  install  him- 
self, his  wife,  his  son,  a  two-months-old-child, 
and  his  sister-in-law,  Mary,  in  a  more  com- 
fortable dwelling  in  Doughty  Street.  At  first 
he  was  wonderfully  happy  there.  Success  had 
rewarded  his  efforts.  When  at  last  he  had  com- 
pleted his  task,  and  it  was  a  lengthy  one,  for 


iURS.    CHARLES   DICKENS 
On  the  2nd  of  April,   1S36,  Dickens  married  Catherine  Hogarth,  by 
whom  he  had  ten  children.     She  was  the  daughter  of  the  managing 

editor  of  the  Evening  Clironide. 


MR.   PICKWICK  87 

he  naturally  was  obliged  to  satisfy  the  profita- 
ble exigencies  of  his  publishers,  he  was  free 
once  more  to  set  forth,  afoot  or  on  horse-back, 
either  to  soothe  his  nerves  or  to  visit  and  re- 
visit certain  people  and  places,  to  explore 
gloomy  lanes  and  sordid  alleys  and  grey  and 
dismal  suburbs. 

Wherever  he  went,  he  sought  for  material  to 
feed  his  eager  curiosity,  and  ardent  sympathy 
that  enabled  him  to  share  in  the  anguish  and 
wretchedness  of  the  whole  world. 

Mary  Hogarth  brightened  his  home  with  all 
the  charm  of  her  seventeen  springtimes.  Even 
to  a  greater  degree  than  his  wife,  who  was 
absorbed  no  doubt  by  the  cares  of  housekeep- 
ing and  maternity,  Mary  seemed  to  understand 
the  joys  and  the  anxieties  of  Dickens  and  to 
divine  all  the  nobility  and  all  the  profundity  of 
his  dawning  genius. 

To  the  candour  of  a  child,  and  the  magnifi- 
cence of  youth  in  its  first  flower,  Mary  added 
all  the  power  of  simple  understanding  and  pa- 
thetic charity  which  is  often  the  natural  and 


88  CHARLES  DICKENS 

splendid  treasure  of  the  humblest  woman.  The 
novelist  beheld  her  in  all  her  divine  radiance: 
and  little  Nell  was  destined  later  to  be  en- 
dowed with  all  the  sublimity  which  he  had 
read  in  the  pure  glance  of  young  Mary  Ho- 
garth. 

And  then  suddenly  that  glance  clouded, 
darkened  and  became  extinct.  One  evening, 
in  May,  1837,  after  returning  from  the  theatre, 
she  died,  stricken  down  by  illness  in  a  few 
hours.  This  irreparable  and  purposeless  event 
came  upon  the  novelist  as  an  unforeseen  and 
atrocious  shock.  Never  in  his  life  would  he 
be  able  to  forget  that  gentle  girl  who  died  at 
the  age  of  seventeen.  In  his  reveries  and  on 
his  travels,  beneath  the  enchanting  serenity 
of  Italian  skies  and  before  the  majesty  of  Ni- 
agara Falls,  he  called  to  mind  her  treasured 
memory,  which  was,  nevertheless,  so  poignant- 
ly sad. 

Think  of  the  tragedy  of  it!  Through  his 
unwearied  energies  Dickens  had  conquered 
with    a   high   hand   both    fame   and    fortune. 


MR.    PICKWICK  89 

Everything  smiled  upon  him.  He  was  eager 
for  happiness,  both  for  himself  and  for  those 
who  surrounded  him,  especially  for  her  who, 
next  to  his  wife,  and  perhaps  even  more  de- 
votedly, shared  in  his  splendid  dreams.  And 
then  Death  came,  the  unknown  Visitor,  the 
black  Reaper. 

Then  Dickens  halted,  horrified,  before  the 
enigma.  His  pen,  that  ready  instrument  of 
joy,  of  elation,  of  compassion,  fell  from  his 
nerveless  hand.  He  forgot  everything,  even 
his  ambition,  in  the  presence  of  this  bereave- 
ment, which  revealed  to  his  anguished  heart 
all  the  other  unknown  bereavements  that  take 
place  on  this  indifferent  planet. 

And  for  some  time  Pickwick  ceased  to  ap- 
pear. 

But  he  must  live,  he  must  struggle,  he  must 
resign  himself  to  the  impossibility  of  solving 
the  mysterious  purposes  of  fate. 

Towards  the  close  of  the  year  1837,  Mr. 
Pickwick,  still  blundering,  still  credulous  and 
beatific,  consented  to  settle  down  near  Dul- 


90  CHARLES  DICKENS 

wich  and  to  abandon  the  great  highways  on 
which  he  had  had  so  many  adventures.  This 
paladin  of  a  new  type  at  last  went  into  retire- 
ment, at  least  to  all  appearances.  Yet  he  is, 
and  will  always  continue  to  be,  in  the  eyes  of 
all  England,  the  big,  benevolent  traveller,  with 
low-crowned  hat,  huge,  glistening  spectacles 
and  tight-fitting  breeches,  while  he  carries  his 
overcoat  under  one  arm  and  his  valise  under 
the  other.  A  dinner,  given  by  the  author  to 
his  publishers  and  a  few  intimate  friends,  in- 
cluding the  actor  Macready  and  the  journalist 
Forster,  celebrated  his  well  merited  triumph. 
Thanks  to  his  success,  Charles  Dickens  now 
formed  some  valuable  connections:  He  was 
welcomed  enthusiastically  in  some  of  the  most 
fashionable  drawing-rooms,  notably  in  that  of 
Lady  Blessington,  at  Gore  House,  where,  in 
addition  to  the  exquisite  Count  d'Orsay,  one  of 
the  lions  of  the  period,  he  was  brought  into  con- 
tact with  Thackeray,  the  two  Disraelis,  father 
and  son,  the  painter  Maclise,  who  has  left  us 
some  curious  portraits  of  Dickens,  the  future 


MR.    PICKWICK  91 

Lord  Lytton,  the  future  Napoleon  III.,  and 
many  others,  including  artists,  musicians, 
painters  and  critics. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  he  was  violently  at- 
tacked by  certain  authors  who  were  jealous  of 
his  success  and,  being  themselves  second-rate 
novelists,  became  just  so  many  anonymous 
and  prejudiced  critics. 

He  was  accused  of  all  sorts  of  imaginary  mis- 
deeds, and  even  of  insanity,  and,  when  the  at- 
tacks were  not  personal,  they  dragged  his  style 
and  his  heroes  in  the  mud. 

Now,  Dickens  was,  and  continued  to  be 
throughout  his  life,  extremely  sensitive.  It  w^as 
Horace  who  characterised  poets  as  an  irritable 
race.  Yet  there  have  been  few  poets  as  irri- 
table as  this  great  poet-novelist.  He  resented 
the  slightest  pin-prick  as  a  mortal  attack.  A 
mere  jest  would  cause  him  veritable  suffering. 
He  had  a  habit  of  infinitely  exaggerating  cer- 
tain little  events  of  literary  life  and  of  consid- 
ering a  satiric  comment  on  one  of  his  novels 
as  a  most  abominable  calumny^ 


92  CHARLES  DICKENS 

It  should  be  noted  in  fairness  that  Dickens 
had  occasion  to  suffer  enormously  from  certain 
needy  and  desperate  penmen,  who  may  well  be 
regarded  as  the  pirates  of  the  world  of  letters, 
shamelessly  pillaging  the  writings  or,  to  use 
the  term  best  suited  to  put  their  conduct  in 
its  true  light,  the  literary  merchandise  of 
others. 

Poor  Boz  was  forced  to  fight  savagely  against 
the  encroachments  of  Buz,  Poz  and  Bos.  Poor 
Charles  Dickens,  in  spite  of  his  affectionate 
and  indulgent  nature,  must  needs  invoke  the 
aid  of  all  the  devils  and  all  the  law  courts 
against  the  Charles  Diggenses  (  !  )  and  other 
plagiarists  who  were  plundering  his  name  and 
his  manner  without  pity  and  without  warn- 
ing. Before  long,  to  his  horror,  there  were 
side  by  side  with  Oliver  Twist  and  Nicholas 
Nickleby  an  Oliver  Twiss  and  a  Nicholas 
Nickelberry  f 

Another  misadventure  of  the  same  nature: 
Seymour's  widow,  with  her  judgment  weak- 
ened, no  doubt,  by  sorrow,  did  not  hesitate  to 


MR.   PICKWICK  93 

claim  that  the  conception  of  Pickwick  had 
originated  with  the  illustrator.  Nothing  could 
have  been  more  false.  Pickwick  owed  his 
whole  existence  to  Dickens,  to  the  thousand 
and  one  happy  inventions  of  each  installment, 
each  chapter,  each  page,  in  which  he  so  gen- 
erously lavished  the  unsuspected  resources  of 
one  of  the  most  prodigal  geniuses  that  ever 
existed. 

Dickens  had  so  many  things  to  say  that  he 
would  have  said  them,  no  matter  where,  no 
matter  when  and  no  matter  how.  Like  Swift 
and  Rabelais,  he  never  needed  to  trouble  him- 
self regarding  the  theme  he  was  to  treat. 

And  the  strangest  thing  is  that  in  giving 
birth  to  his  enormous  and  prodigious  Pickwick 
he  did  not  exhaust  himself  in  any  way  what- 
ever, but  quite  the  contrary.  When  that  amaz- 
ing publication  was  completed  he  had  already 
commenced  two  other  works,  which,  although 
dealing  with  a  different  order  of  ideas,  are  none 
the  less  both  of  them  astonishing  masterpieces. 

From  this  time  on  he  vras  rich,  famous,  proud 


94  CHARLES  DICKENS 

of  his  work,  sought  after,  and  haunted  by  the 
most  beautiful  and  touching  visions.  He  had 
found  his  true  path.  He  was  destined  to  re- 
main always  the  same,  and  yet  forever  new, 
thanks  to  the  incomparable  power  of  his  gen- 
ius» Already  all  England  recognised  the  truth 
of  his  portrayals  and  delighted  in  them. 

At  the  age  of  twenty-six  he  was  in  the  full 
enjoyment  of  victory  and  health  and  good 
looks.  He  was  bent  upon  hearing  all  the  lamen- 
tations of  the  weak  and  the  orphaned,  upon 
denouncing  all  forms  of  baseness,  upon  glori- 
fying all  salutary  joys,  and  upon  giving  life  to 
a  world  of  his  own  creation. 

He  came  with  full  hands  to  his  task,  and  he 
was  destined  to  pass  the  whole  of  his  laborious, 
intense,  feverish  life  in  emptying  them. 


CHAPTER   IV 

TYPES  AND  MANNERS. — THE  KINDNESS  OF  A 
CLOWN. — THE  THOUSAND  AND  ONE  NIGHTS 
OF  LONDON  AND  ENGLAND. — MR.  SWIVEL- 
LER's  GRANDILOQUENCE.  —  MR.  QUILP 
SCREAMS  WITH  LAUGHTER. — LITTLE  NELL 
PASSES  AWAY 

HENCEFORWARD,  whether  in  the  big 
house  in  Devonshire  Terrace,  which 
was  his  residence  from  1840  to  1850  and  which 
was  picturesquely  extended  in  rotundas  and 
verandahs,  where  he  could  meditate  at  his  ease 
facing  the  bright  fountain  of  a  shady  park;  or 
in  a  hired  cottage  at  Twickenham;  or  at  the 
seaside,  at  Broadstairs,  where  he  chose  to  live 
in  seclusion  with  his  family  and  a  few  faithful 
friends,  Charles  Dickens  devoted  himself,  to 
borrow  Flaubert's  phrase,  to  the  task  of  plac- 
ing black  upon  white. 

We  ought  rather  to  have  said  blue  upon 
95 


96  CHARLES  DICKENS 

white,  since  that  was  the  colour  of  ink  which 
he  affected.  In  common  with  his  heroes,  one 
and  all  (and  he  never  spares  us  these  details, 
which  recur  again  and  again,  after  the  manner 
of  Homeric  epithets),  Dickens  himself  had 
manias,  fads,  or,  at  all  events  and  above  all, 
settled  habits. 

He  had  to  work  at  his  own  hours,  according 
to  a  programme  to  which  he  had  subjected  him- 
self. He  could  not  write  without  having  a 
certain  number  of  pens  within  his  reach,  and 
a  certain  number  of  familiar  ornaments  upon 
his  table,  even  such  commonplace  ornaments 
as  the  bronze  frogs  which  he  always  insisted 
upon  taking  with  him,  along  with  other  ob- 
jects, upon  his  travels. 

Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  the  enormous 
amount  of  his  daily  task,  he  was  constantly 
thirsting  for  adventures:  he  delighted  in  the 
extraordinary  and  the  unforeseen,  in  strange 
occurrences  and  mad  escapades.  It  would  seem 
as  though  he  were  striving  to  live  his  own  life 
after  the  manner  of  life  in  his  novels. 


TYPES  AND  MANNERS  97 

"We  see  him,  on  a  certain  occasion,  in  the 
country,  retiring  to  his  bed-chamber  in  order 
to  take  a  well  earned  rest  after  a  particularly 
active  day.  But,  finding  that  he  cannot  sleep, 
he  desires  to  go  out  and  return  to  London  on 
foot,  a  little  stroll  of  about  thirty  miles. 

"There  he  is,  setting  forth  into  the  night, 
full  of  energy.  In  the  grey  of  early  dawn  he 
arrives  in  sight  of  the  suburbs  of  London,  en- 
ters a  coffee-house,  the  host  of  which  has  just 
opened  his  doors,  and  asks  for  something  to 
drink.  He  offers  a  coin  in  payment,  the  only 
one  he  has  with  him. 

"  'Your  coin  is  a  counterfeit,  and  I  shall  have 
you  arrested,'  says  the  host. 

"The  coin,  in  truth,  has  a  very  doubtful  ap- 
pearance. The  pedestrian  apologises  and,  in 
order  to  rescue  himself  from  his  dilemma,  has 
recourse  to  a  method  which  several  times  be- 
fore has  succeeded. 

"  'I  am  Charles  Dickens.' 

"The  host,  of  course,  knows  the  famous  nov- 
elist by  name.    He  has  undoubtedly  read  sev- 


98  CHARLES  DICKENS 

eral  of  his  works.  But  his  early  morning  guest 
presents,  to  tell  the  truth,  a  most  unprepos- 
sessing appearance.  His  shoes  are  bespattered 
with  mud,  and  his  garments  covered  with  dust. 
The  statement  does  not  sound  convincing. 

''  'Oh,  yes!  Anybody  can  say  "I  am  Charles 
Dickens"!' 

''But  a  neighbouring  druggist  is  about  to 
open  his  shop  ;  Dickens  proposes  that  they  shall 
take  him  as  arbitrator,  not  of  the  coin  that  has 
been  called  in  question,  but  of  his  own  identity. 
Accordingly,  they  betake  themselves  to  the 
druggist;  there,  the  grumbling  coffee-house 
keeper  explains  that  he  has  been  robbed  within 
the  week;  and  there,  the  druggist  recognises 
the  novelist,  whose  portrait  is  familiar  to  every 
one  who  knows  how  to  read  and  cares  to 
know  the  features  of  their  favourite  author. 
Mine  host  of  the  coffee-house  is  delighted,  not 
so  much  for  having  been  patronised  by  a  cele- 
brated man  of  letters,  as  to  find  that  his  cus- 
tomer is  not  a  thief." 

This  pretty  anecdote,  so  amusingly  related 


TYPES  AND  MANNERS  99 

by  Monsieur  Hervier,  has  the  merit  of  initi- 
ating us  into  one  of  Dickens's  favourite  pas- 
times. 

He  loved  to  wander  alone,  at  all  hours  of  the 
day  and  night,  gazing  and  listening.  This  habit, 
which  he  acquired  in  those  early  hours  of  lib- 
erty, when  evening  set  him  free  from  the  hor- 
rible blacking  warehouse,  was  a  habit  which  he 
retained  throughout  life. 

He  sought  the  haunts  of  the  humble,  the 
lowly,  the  swarming  populace.  This  same  man, 
whose  lively  and  fantastic  spirit  formed  the 
delight  of  a  chosen  circle,  became  in  his  ca- 
pacity as  author,  to  repeat  what  has  often  been 
said  before,  sincerely  and  fundamentally  of 
and  for  the  people. 

Unquestionably  he  felt  a  poetic  and  lyric 
emotion  in  the  presence  of  the  spectacle  of  na- 
ture; but  he  never  succeeded  in  separating  it 
from  the  tumultuous,  grotesque,  and  complex 
drama  of  humanity  in  action;  for  he  himself 
was,  above  all  else,  human  and  social. 

His  stage  setting,  his  environment,  especial- 


100  CHARLES  DICKENS 

ly  that  of  London  and  its  suburbs,  where  he 
moved  at  ease  and  of  which  he  knew  every 
nook  and  corner,  exists  essentially  through  its 
relationship  to  the  personages  of  the  drama 
which  Dickens  had  heard  with  his  inner  ear, 
and  of  which  he  reproduced  the  voice,  the  ac- 
cent, the  slightest  gesture,  in  harmony  with 
the  locality  described,  and  with  an  amazing  lav- 
ishness  of  salient  detail. 

It  is  easy  to  understand  why  Dickens  be- 
came the  idol  of  these  people  whom  he  knew 
so  well,  and  to  whom,  perhaps,  he  alone  has 
succeeded  in  speaking  with  magisterial  author- 
ity. He  is  a  weaver  of  romance,  and  he  is  a 
moralist,  but  he  never  succeeded  in  separating 
the  one  from  the  other.  Hence  come  his  power 
and  his  prestige  over  the  masses.  He  did  not 
preach  virtue  in  a  didactic  and  pedagogic  man- 
ner, but  he  denounced  evil  with  such  bitter 
and  ferocious  irony  that  he  inspired  a  hatred 
of  it.  And  while  he  excelled  in  surrounding 
himself  with  an  atmosphere  of  darkness  and 
mysterious  horrors,  while  he  showed  a  strange 


TYPES  AND  MANNERS  101 

ability  in  conducting  us  to  resorts  frequented 
by  individuals  of  hang-dog  and  gallows-bird  de- 
meanour, at  the  same  time  no  one  has  rivalled 
him  in  his  power  of  depicting  rogues  and  ras- 
cals, and  laying  bare  social  iniquities  with  a 
good  humour  that  is  at  once  a  diversion  and 
a  revenge. 

These  are  the  impressions  which  we  receive, 
and  always  with  the  same  original  intensity, 
whenever,  for  example,  \ve  re-read  Oliver  Twist. 

Oliver  Twist,  which  succeeded  Pickwick,  was 
published  in  Bentley' s  Magazine,  of  which 
Dickens  was  for  the  time  being  editor,  and 
easily  acquired  thousands  of  subscribers  from 
among  those  sensitive  to  the  undeserved  suffer- 
ings of  abandoned  children.  Oliver  was  a  par- 
ish charge,  an  asylum  orphan,  a  poor  little 
scape-goat,  tortured  by  hunger,  subjected  to 
blows,  hatred  and  contempt,  and  to  what  the 
author  sardonically  calls  the  tender  mercy  of 
church  wardens  and  inspectors. 

What  a  host  of  abandoned  and  unhappy  chil- 
dren have  appeared  in  serials  since  the  days  of 


JOÎ  CHARLES  DICKENS 

poor  Oliver  Twist!  Dickens's  subject  was  one 
which  was  the  common  property  of  the  world 
at  large,  and  he  chose  to  complicate  it  with  a 
quite  commonplace  story  of  cut-throats  and 
thieves.  There  is  no  question  about  that.  But 
Dickens  was  something  more  than  a  story- 
teller; he  was  a  man  who  had  eyes  and  knew 
how  to  use  them.  From  the  moment  that  we 
open  the  volume  we  come  under  his  charm  ;  we 
laugh  and  weep  and  rage,  just  as  he  wills  us 
to.  We  shall  never  be  able  to  forget  the  dying 
mother,  the  charity  doctor,  the  nurse  who  keeps 
up  her  courage  on  a  double  ration  of  beer,  or 
the  poor  children,  marked  and  ticketed,  in  that 
lamentable  depository  of  indigence. 

Whether  he  is  brief,  as  he  is  here,  or  prolix, 
losing  himself  in  a  confused  tangle  of  inci- 
dents and  details  of  manners  and  of  characters, 
we  are  with  him,  heart  and  soul.  He  is  a  great 
magician  who  has  cast  his  spell  upon  us.  We 
must  needs  listen  to  his  tirades,  accept  him 
on  the  strength  of  his  bare  word,  rebel  or  sym- 
pathise in  unison  with  him. 


TYPES  AND  MANNERS  103 

How  we  quiver  with  sympathy  for  Oliver 
Twist,  pale,  puny,  sickly  little  lad,  who  has 
furthermore  the  misfortune  to  fall  ill  of  cold 
and  hunger.  The  idea  of  such  a  thing!  Why, 
it  is  preposterous  in  the  case  of  a  boy  who  has 
the  good  luck  to  be  under  the  double  control 
of  the  parish  and  the  alms-house,  the  good  luck 
to  receive  a  volley  of  blows  from  Mrs.  Mann, 
the  protection  of  a  beadle  such  as  Mr.  Bumble, 
the  eternal  Mr.  Bumble,  and  to  sleep  among 
coffins  at  ten  years  of  age! 

And  we  continue  to  quiver  with  sympathy 
throughout  four  or  five  hundred  pages.  No 
one  has  ever  painted  unhappy  childhood  and 
youth,  humiliated,  sensitive,  and  in  revolt,  so 
well  as  Dickens  did,  excepting,  here  and  there, 
Daudet,  and  excepting,  each  in  his  own  way, 
Jules  Vallès  and  Léon  Frapié. 

Oliver  Twist  is  an  exquisite  picture  of  suf- 
fering childhood,  the  small  ancestor  of  count- 
less other  small  beings,  abused,  deserted,  deso- 
late, and,  heaven  be  thanked,  quickly  consoled. 
For  there  are  always  some  rays  of  light  in  the 


104  CHARLES  DICKENS 

darkest  of  jails,  save  only  that  in  which  the 
hideous  Fagin  is  confined. 

The  general  public  loves  to  be  assured  as  to 
the  fate  of  characters  in  fiction;  the  villain, 
the  traitor,  the  thief  ought  to  receive  a  just 
punishment.  This  is  by  no  means  displeasing 
to  Dickens  himself;  and  he  has  so  many  ad- 
mirable qualities  that  he  may  well  claim  the 
right  not  to  be  so  fastidious  as  to  refuse  to  make 
concessions  to  popular  taste. 

Undoubtedly,  the  conclusion  of  Oliver  Twist 
and  the  contrast  between  Mr.  Brownlow  and 
characters  of  the  type  of  those  hideous  ruf- 
fians, Fagin,  Sikes  and  even  Monks,  offers  us, 
today  especially,  nothing  particularly  new,  in 
point  of  view  of  plot.  But  who  could  express 
so  well  as  Charles  Dickens  the  naïve  compas- 
sion of  little  Dick  for  little  Oliver,  or  the  sim- 
ple goodness  of  Rose  May  lie? 

Emphasis  has  rightly  been  laid  upon  the 
melodramatic  gloom  which  especially  enshrouds 
all  the  heroes  and  all  the  scenes  of  this  novel, 
which,  although  it  made  a  sensation,  never  en- 


TYPES  AND  MANNERS  105 

joyed  the  same  sort  of  theatrical  triumph,  never 
became  a  capital  event  in  English  life,  as  Pick- 
wick did  before  it. 

This  is  because,  after  having  invented  a  sort 
of  mad  poetry  of  hilarity,  he  desired  to  create  a 
poetry  of  terror.  Hence  we  have  this  collection 
of  drab  and  grey  and  pitch-black  scenes,  at 
once  naïve  and  horrible,  which  the  illustrator 
Cruikshank  visualised  with  grim  energy. 

We  have  the  feeling  of  being  taken  into  a 
sort  of  inferno,  the  realm  of  demons.  For 
Charles  Dickens,  as  we  know,  possessed  and  al- 
ways retained  the  special  gift  of  bringing  forth, 
as  from  an  enchanted  box,  all  sorts  of  diabolical 
shadow  shapes,  excepting  at  such  times  as  he 
chose  to  reform  us  by  leading  us  among  some 
little  group  of  terrestrial  angels — for  there  al- 
ways are  a  few  such  still  remaining — happy  in 
the  enjoyment  of  their  earthly  paradise. 
Thank  God!  Oliver  is  not  always  seen  in  the 
midst  of  scoundrels  and  of  such  extremely  hon- 
orable gentlemen  that  they  might  easily  be  mis- 
taken for  blackguards;  he  also  passes  happy 


106  CHARLES  DICKENS 

days  in  the  company  of  Rose  and  Mrs.  Maylie. 
He  learns  the  joy  of  happy  tears,  after  having 
known  shame,  want  and  degradation. 

Dickens  is  as  much  at  home  in  respectable 
/surroundings  as  in  the  dens  of  thieves  and  the 
[  foul  taverns  where  they  hatch  their  villainies. 
But  it  is  evident  that  in  Oliver  Twist  he  exag- 
gerated the  sombre  tones  in  order  to  give  his 
pictures  a  greater  vigour  and  to  make  a  deeper 
impression  upon  his  public. 

Trick- work?  To  be  sure.  But  he  got  his  ef- 
fects. And  in  any  case  we  must  never  for  an 
instant  question  his  preference  for  clean, 
healthful  living,  honest  jollity,  and  a  religion 
fertile  in  good  actions  and  finding  its  concrete 
expression  in  beautiful  churches,  noble  hymns, 
and  peaceful  cemeteries. 

The  year  1838,  the  date  of  the  birth  of  that 
dramatic  and  emotional  volume,  Oliver  Twist, 
was  also  that  of  the  Sketches  oj  Young  Gentle- 
men, the  manuscript  of  which  was  sold  some 
little  time  ago  in  America  for  five  thousand  dol- 
lars, with  all  the  unpublished  text  that  it  con- 


TYPES  AND  MANNERS  107 

tained.  This  was  also  the  year  in  which  Dick- 
ens, decidedly  indefatigable,  edited  the  curious 
memoirs  of  à  celebrated  clown,  Joseph  Gri- 
maldi.  They  excited  a  mild  polemic  in  the  pub- 
lic press,  and  the  novelist,  in  accordance  with 
his  habit,  felt  himself  called  upon  to  let  loose 
his  thunder-bolts  against  his  ill-intentioned 
critics. 

It  is  probable  that  these  Memoirs  owe  some 
part,  even  if  not  a  large  one,  to  their  editor, 
who  was  so  well  qualified  to  bring  out  the  hid- 
den tragedy  in  the  lives  of  clowns  and  mounte- 
banks. 

M.  Jules  Claretie,  who  has  so  justly  defined 
Dickens  as  the  novelist  of  respectability,  has 
laid  special  stress  upon  one  of  the  most  striking 
anecdotes  in  the  Memoirs: 

Grimaldi,  then,  was  a  clown,  more  than  that, 
a  famous  clown,  the  very  king  of  clownery,  an 
eminently  popular  person  in  the  land  apprecia- 
tive of  humour.  Wherever  he  passed  he  received 
an  ovation.  Even  Byron,  it  seems,  descended 
from    the    ethereal    regions    of    romanticism 


108  CHARLES  DICKENS 

in    order   to    linger    and    converse    with   him. 

Now,  on  a  certain  occasion,  the  following  lit- 
tle adventure  befell  him:  one  night,  after  a 
performance,  he  was  driving  back  to  his  home 
in  the  suburbs  of  London.  Suddenly  three 
thieves  flung  themselves  upon  his  horse.  Gri- 
maldi,  covered  by  their  pistols,  remained  impas- 
sive. They  searched  him  and  secured  his 
pocketbook  and  watch. 

"Listen,"  said  Grimaldi,  in  a  cool  tone  ;  "keep 
my  money,  but  at  least  let  me  have  back  my 
watch.  It  has  no  value  aside  from  association. 
I  would  be  very  grateful  to  you." 

"All  right,"  said  one  of  the  bold  highwaymen, 
snatching  the  watch  from  his  companion  and 
returning  it  with  a  brusque  gesture  to  the 
clown;  the  latter  had  just  time  to  catch  a 
glimpse  of  the  hand  of  this  robber  who  still  re- 
tained some  sentiment;  it  was  a  mutilated 
hand,  with  only  two  fingers  projecting  from  the 
stump.  It  was  the  hand  of  a  certain  machinist, 
Hamilton  by  name,  who  had  been  hurt  in  an 
accident  to  his  machine.     Unluckily  for  him. 


TYPES  AND  MANNERS  109 

he  was  in  the  habit  of  frequenting  a  certain 
tavern  which  Grimaldi  occasionally  patronised. 

Grimaldi  reported  the  robbery  without  giv- 
ing details.  Two  days  later  he  was  summoned 
to  Bow  Street.  There  he  found  that  Hamilton 
was  held,  together  with  two  other  individuals, 
strongly  suspected  of  the  attack,  and  sur- 
rounded with  a  guard  of  policemen. 

"Do  you  recognise  any  of  these  men?"  Gri- 
maldi w^as  asked. 

With  vast  assurance  Hamilton  interposed: 

"Of  course  the  gentleman  knows  me.  We 
take  our  meals  side  by  side,  and  I  am  proud  to 
have  the  honour  of  his  acquaintance." 

Grimaldi  let  him  finish  speaking,  and  then 
slowly  and  deliberately  looked  him  in  the  face, 
while  at  the  same  time  he  raised  his  right  hand 
with  only  tw^o  fingers  extended. 

Hamilton  thought  himself  lost. 

Grimaldi  hesitated  for  a  moment.  The  guilty 
man  bowed  his  head  with  a  hopeless  air.  How 
young  he  was!     How  utterly  overwhelmed  he 


no  CHARLES  DICKENS 

seemed  !  Was  he  beyond  reform,  an  absolutely 
corrupted  character? 

At  last  the  clown  declared  : 

"I  do  not  recognise  any  of  the  accused.'^ 

This  meant  their  salvation. 

The  following  day  Hamilton  came  to  thank 
Grimaldi  effusively  and  with  sincerity.  They 
never  met  again,  but  for  a  dozen  years,  when- 
ever the  clown  received  a  benefit  performance, 
some  unknown  person,  some  anonymous  spec- 
tator always  ordered  ten  tickets.  One  day  the 
clown's  servant  noticed  that  the  right  hand  of 
this  eccentric  unknown  was  mutilated.  Ham- 
ilton had  again  become  an  honest  man.  He 
died  in  a  conflagration  while  trying  to  save  the 
lives  of  two  children  who  had  been  abandoned 
to  the  flames. 

Simultaneously  with  his  celebrated  Oliver 
Twist,  Charles  Dickens  had  begun  his  no  less 
celebrated  Nicholas  Nicklehy,  the  installments 
of  which,  when  they  appeared  in  1839,  were  re- 
ceived with  an  almost  frensied  eagerness. 

This  book  continues  to  astonish  and  capti- 


TYPES  AND  MANNERS  111 

vate  us  long  afterwards,  if  not  by  its  construc- 
tion, at  least  by  the  sharp  relief  of  certain 
physiognomies,  which  may  be  regarded  as  com- 
posite portraits.  There  are  a  host  of  women 
from  all  lands  and  all  periods  to  be  found  in  the 
person  of  Mrs.  Nickleby  relating  her  past  life 
with  so  much  enjoyment  and  insistence!  We 
forget  Nicholas  and  Madeline  Bray,  in  order  to 
hear  her  consoling  herself  for  human  vicissi- 
tudes by  minutely  describing  to  us  her  former 
servants,  her  former  style  of  living;  and  she 
pours  forth  her  amusing  inanities  with  such 
good  faith  that  in  the  end  she  unconsciously 
enunciates  certain  great  psychological  truths 
precisely  as  M.  Jourdain  spoke  prose  without 
knowing  it. 

/  It  must  be  conceded  that  Dickens  possessed 
'  the  immense,  the  infinite  gift  of  laughter  and  of 
tears.  It  must  also  be  conceded  that  in  writing 
the  successive  installments  of  his  stories  he 
found  a  way  of  shouting  abroad,  through  and 
above  the  action  of  the  plot,  his  personal  en- 
thusiasms and  hatreds.    But  the  wicked  char- 


112  CHARLES  DICKENS 

acters  in  these  stories  remain  consistently- 
wicked  and  must  receive  the  punishment  that 
they  deserve — and  in  this  respect  the  great 
English  novelist  is  exempt  from  the  vulgar 
optimism  that  has  been  attributed  to  him.  Ac- 
cordingly, Squeers  receives  his  deserts.  And,  as 
to  such  profligate  aristocrats  as  Sir  Mulberry 
Hawk,  they  also  get  their  due  share  of  mauling 
and  lambasting. 

Without  stopping  to  ask  whether  some  of  the 
portraits  of  this  order  are  not  the  outcome  of 
too  prejudiced  a  party  spirit  and  treated  with 
too  systematic  a  hostility,  it  must  be  recog- 
nised that  Charles  Dickens  had  a  very  sincere 
and  very  real  confidence  in  democracy,  in  its 
generous  instincts,  its  beneficent  influence,  and 
its  promise  for  the  future. 

The  whole  problem  was  to  liberate  this 
democracy  from  its  deadly  trammels,  to  edu- 
cate it,  and  enlighten  it  as  to  its  duties  and  its 
rights. 

From  the  outset  of  his  career  Dickens  took 
this  rôle  of  educator  very  seriously.    He  said  to 


TYPES  AND  MANNERS  113 

himself:  One  nail  drives  out  another.  The 
novel  is  an  instrument  capable  of  destroying 
the  powers  of  corruption  and  crime,  or  over- 
turning the  already  rotten  edifice  of  all  social 
iniquities. 

He  could  not  endure  an  injustice,  no  matter 
how  slight.  Indignation  was  his  chief*  spur,  ex- 
cepting when  pity  wrung  from  his  heart  a  loud 
outcry  of  suffering  and  revolt. 

But  comedy  remains  his  favourite  weapon. 
He  is  prodigiously  eloquent,  because  he  has  the 
gift  of  being  prodigiously  amusing.  In  this 
sense  Mantalini  belongs  in  that  colossal  gallery 
of  personages  each  perfect  of  their  kind,  who 
because  of  their  supreme  and  sustained  comedy 
have  their  legitimate  place  among  Nickleby, 
Gradgrind  and  Scrooge  on  the  one  side,  and 
Toby  Veck,  Stephen  and  Bob  Cratchit  on  the 
other. 

Mantalini  is  as  eminently  remarkable  as  Mi- 
cawber,  the  elder  Weller  or  the  imposing  Pick- 
wick. He,  too,  has  an  inexhaustible  fertility 
of  phrases  that  refuse  to  be  forgotten:  as,  for 


114  CHARLES  DICKENS 

instance,  when  speaking  of  his  wife  :  "She  will 
be  a  lovely  widow;  I  shall  be  a  body.  Some 
handsome  women  will  cry;  she  will  laugh 
demnably." 

Every  now  and  then  in  Dickens,  at  the  turn 
of  a  page  or  chapter,  we  come  across  epitaphs 
of  irresistible  import.  He  gives  us  the  comedy 
of  death  as  well  as  of  life,  but  with  scarcely  a 
touch  of  sinister  or  supernatural  horror. 

Meanwhile,  although  he  loved  with  his  whole 
heart  the  chief  diversions  of  the  common  peo- 
ple, Dickens  also  loved  luxuries  and  elegance. 
He  earned  a  great  deal  and  he  spent  a  great 
deal.  We  must  not  forget  that  he  had  a  large 
family:  six  children,  to  whom  he  was  devoted 
and  whose  future  caused  him  much  anxiety. 

That  is  why,  with  his  feverish  activity,  he 
was  not  satisfied  even  when  he  was  carrying  for- 
ward a  double  or  triple  task  such  as  would  have 
exhausted  the  powers  of  a  good  many  of  his 
fellow  writers.  The  fact  that  success  had 
smiled  upon  him  so  quickly  led  him  to  believe 
that  nothing  was  impossible  for  him. 


TYPES  AND  MANNERS  115 

After  the  example  of  Addison  he  conceived 
the  idea  of  editing  a  weekly  journal,  and 
quickly  came  to  terms  with  his  publishers, 
Chapman  &  Hall.  The  enterprise  ought  to 
bring  him  between  a  thousand  and  twelve  hun- 
dred dollars  a  month  ;  it  seemed  well  worth  try- 
ing. 

Accordingly  he  began  the  publication  of  his 
periodical  under  the  title  of  Master  Hum- 
phrey's  Clock.  What  did  he  intend  to  make  of 
it?  A  sort  of  cycle  of  tales,  short  stories,  ro- 
mances, all  bound  loosely  together,  somewhat 
after  the  manner  of  a  London  Heptameron,  and 
all  permeated  with  imagination  and  observa- 
tion. The  Seven  Poor  Travellers  and  Mrs.  Lor- 
riper's  Lodgers  were  stories  of  the  sort  that  lend 
themselves  to  be  combined,  multiplied  and  pro- 
longed indefinitely,  to  the  greater  joy  of  reader 
and  author  alike. 

For  the  author  enjoyed  himself  quite  as  much 
as  the  reader,  and  perhaps  even  more  so.  To 
begin  an  extremely  complicated  story,  in  which 
there  were  a  great  variety  of  characters,  all 


116  CHARLES  DICKENS 

very  much  alive,  very  lugubrious,  or  very  amus- 
ing, to  stop  short  in  the  midst  of  this  first  story 
in  order  to  narrate  a  second  one  equally 
crowded  and  equally  picturesque,  and  then  to 
revert  to  the  first  in  order  to  bring  it  to  its  des- 
tined end,  was  to  Dickens  in  the  nature  of  a 
game.  It  is  a  game  which  often  wearies  us, 
even  in  the  noblest  of  his  books,  the  most  mag- 
nificently generous  of  them.  But  it  was  a  tra- 
ditional method.  Chaucer,  like  the  still  older 
writers  before  him,  followed  the  same  pro- 
cedure. 

Dickens  delighted  in  vast  and  difficult  enter- 
prises, which  seemed  to  demand  a  boundless 
activity.  He  was  extremely  methodical  and 
scrupulously  careful  in  all  his  work.  But  after 
long  sessions,  during  which  his  pen  had  unin- 
terruptedly shrilled  and  grated  across  the  pa- 
per, change  of  scene  became  imperative. 

He  had  already  considered  the  project  of  a 
flying  visit  to  America,  for  his  popularity  was 
spreading  rapidly  in  every  land  where  the  Eng- 
lish language  was  spoken — almost  too  rapidly 


TYPES  AND  MANNERS  117 

to  suit  him,  for  his  works  were  pillaged  with 
ahnost  greater  cunning  and  speed  than  were  re- 
quired to  write  them. 

Nevertheless — and  this  is  a  point  which  has 
too  often  been  forgotten,  and  which  it  is  im- 
portant to  keep  carefully  in  mind  while  study- 
ing Charles  Dickens — he  was  obliged  to  submit 
constantly,  with  a  tact  and  a  cheerfulness  diffi- 
cult to  maintain,  to  the  exigencies  of  the  public, 
in  order  to  keep  the  sale  of  his  installments 
from  falling  off.  The  miracle  was  that,  under 
such  thoroughly  commercial  conditions,  he  was 
able  to  remain  not  only  the  most  ingenious  and 
fertile  producer  of  popular  serials,  but  also  one 
of  the  most  powerful  and  exceptional  of  mod- 
ern writers. 

A  falling  off  in  sales  was  the  real  reason  for 
his  presently  sending  his  Martin  Chuzzlewit  to 
America.  It  was  for  the  same  motive  that 
Master  Humphrey's  Clock  stopped  running,  in 
spite  of  the  resurrection  of  two  old  friends,  Mr. 
Pickwick  and  Sam  Weller,  and  that  we  have  in 
exchange  that  inimitable  Old  Curiosity  Shop, 


118  CHARLES  DICKENS 

forever  open  to  our  inspection,  forever  stirring 
our  emotions,  and  giving  us  the  lovable  and 
pathetic  little  Nell,  the  formidable  and  Shake- 
spearean Quilp,  and  the  majestic  and  unsur- 
passable absurdity  of  Dick  Swiveller. 

''Dickens,"  as  Taine  has  admirably  said, 
"never  loses  the  impassioned  tone;  he  never 
falls  back  into  a  natural  style  and  simple  nar- 
rative; he  does  nothing  but  mock  or  weep;  he 
writes  nothing  but  satires  and  elegies."  The 
two  styles  blend,  continually,  in  all  his  books, 
and  the  effect  is  inimitable. 

After  listening  to  the  tirades  of  that  incom- 
parable babbler,  Dick  Swiveller,  after  behold- 
ing the  gestures  and  antics  of  that  frightful 
caricature,  the  dwarf  Quilp,  we  must  witness 
the  death  of  little  Nell.  What  a  multitude  of 
honest  hearts  wept  over  her  death  and  shared 
the  old  grandfather's  bereavement!  Why  did 
Dickens  need  to  kill  her,  dear,  maternal  little 
Boul,  worthy  sister  of  Florence  Dombey  and 
Little  Dorrit?  Some  critics  have  reproached 
Dickens  for  the  precocious  maturity  of  little 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Above:  Pickwick  Papers 

"The  internal  economy  of  Dotheboys  Hall 


FROM   THE   WORKS   OF   DICKENS 

"The  \'alentine." — Below:  Nicholas  Nickleby, 


TYPES  AND  MANNERS  119 

Nell,  although  there  is  nothmg  unnatural  about 
it,  as  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  a  host  of  read- 
ers among  the  common  people  felt  her  to  be  so 
real  a  person  that  they  rose  in  indignation 
against  the  novelist  for  letting  her  die.  Had 
he  the  right  to  mow  down  so  exquisite  a  flower, 
even  at  the  six  hundredth  page?  Yet  it  was 
precisely  to  her  fragility  that  she  owed  her 
charm.  It  is  to  her  that  we  owe  a  recital  that 
is  choked  with  sobs,  brimming  over  with  an 
emotion  that  rivals  the  solemnity  of  a  funeral 
oration.  Dickens  himself  was  as  deeply  moved 
as  tender-hearted  little  Kit,  or  the  aged  grand- 
father, perhaps  even  more  so. 

To  be  convinced  of  this,  we  need  only  to  read 
again  the  concluding  pages  of  her  history  : 

"For  she  was  dead.  There,  upon  her  little 
bed,  she  lay  at  rest.  The  solemn  stillness  was 
no  marvel  now. 

''She  was  dead.  No  sleep  so  beautiful  and 
calm,  so  free  from  trace  of  pain,  so  fair  to  look 
upon.     She  seemed  a  creature  fresh  from  the 


120  CHARLES  DICKENS 

hand  of  God,  and  waiting  for  the  breath  of 
hfe;  not  one  who  had  hved  and  suffered  death. 

"Her  couch  was  dressed  with  here  and  there 
some  winter  berries  and  green  leaves,  gathered 
in  a  spot  she  had  been  used  to  favour.  'When 
I  die,  put  near  me  something  that  has  loved  the 
light  and  had  the  sky  above  it  always.'  Those 
were  her  words. 

"She  was  dead.  Dear,  gentle,  patient,  noble 
Nell  was  dead.  Her  little  bird — a  poor,  slight 
thing,  the  pressure  of  a  finger  would  have 
crushed — was  stirring  nimbly  in  its  cage,  and 
the  strong  heart  of  its  child  mistress  was  mute 
and  motionless  forever. 

"Where  were  the  traces  of  her  early  cares,  her 
sufferings,  and  fatigues?  All  gone.  Sorrow 
was  dead  indeed  in  her,  but  peace  and  perfect 
happiness  were  born;  imaged  in  her  tranquil 
beauty  and  profound  repose. 

"And  still  her  former  self  lay  there,  unal- 
tered in  this  change.  Yes.  The  old  fireside  had 
smiled  upon  that  same  sweet  face  ;  it  had  passed 
like  a  dream  through  haunts  of  misery  and 


TYPES  AND  MANNERS  121 

care;  at  the  door  of  the  poor  schoolmaster  on 
the  summer  evening,  before  the  furnace  fire 
upon  the  cold,  wet  night,  at  the  still  bedside  of 
the  dying  boy,  there  had  been  the  same  mild, 
lovely  look.  So  shall  we  know  the  angels  in 
their  majesty  after  death. 

"The  old  man  held  one  languid  arm  in  his, 
and  had  the  small  hand  tight  folded  to  his 
breast  for  warmth.  It  was  the  hand  she  had 
stretched  to  him  with  her  last  smile — the  hand 
that  had  led  him  on  through  all  their  wander- 
ings. Ever  and  anon  he  pressed  it  to  his  lips: 
then  hugged  it  to  his  breast  again,  murmuring 
that  it  was  warmer  now;  and  as  he  said  it  he 
looked  in  agony  to  those  who  stood  around,  as 
if  imploring  them  to  help  her. 

''She  was  dead,  and  past  all  help,  or  need  of 
it.  The  ancient  rooms  she  had  seemed  to  fill 
with  life,  even  while  her  own  was  waning  fast 
— the  garden  she  had  tended — the  eyes  she  had 
gladdened — the  noiseless  haunts  of  many  a 
thoughtful  hour — the  paths  she  had  trodden  as 


122  CHxVRLES  DICKENS 

it  were  but  yesterday — could  know  her  no 
more." 

And  we  must  not  forget  that  it  is  the  same 
author  who  depicts  so  vividly  the  suit  brought 
by  that  rascally  attorney,  Sampson  Brass,  and 
shows  us  the  horrible  and  clamorous  joy  of 
Quilp  when  he  witnesses  the  arrest  of  the  inno- 
cent Kit,  luckless  victim  of  a  contemptible  plot: 

''  'What!'  cried  the  dwarf,  leaning  half  of  his 
body  out  of  window.  'Kit  a  thief!  Kit  a  thief! 
Ha,  ha,  ha!  Why,  he's  an  uglier-looking  thief 
than  can  be  seen  anywhere  for  a  penny.  Eh, 
Kit — eh?  Ha,  ha,  ha!  Have  you  taken  Kit 
into  custody  before  he  had  time  and  oppor- 
tunity to  beat  me!  Eh,  Kit — eh?'  And  with 
that  he  burst  into  a  yell  of  laughter,  manifestly 
to  the  great  terror  of  the  coachman,  and  pointed 
to  a  dyer's  pole  hard  by,  where  a  dangling  suit 
of  clothes  bore  some  resemblance  to  a  man 
upon  a  gibbet." 

And  it  is  still  this  same  writer  who  puts  upon 
the  lips  of  his  inimitable  Dick  Swiveller,  who 
is  chaffing  the  first-floor  lodger  because  he  has 


TYPES  AND  MANNERS  123 

lain  in  bed  all  day,  these  winged  and  immortal 
words  : 

"  The  short  and  the  long  of  it  is  that  we 
cannot  allow  single  gentlemen  to  come  into  this 
estabUshment  and  sleep  like  double  gentlemen 
without  paying  extra  for  it.  .  .  .  An  equal 
quantity  of  slumber  was  never  got  out  of  one 
bed  and  bedstead,  and,  if  you're  going  to  sleep 
in  that  way,  you  must  pay  for  a  double-bedded 
room.'  " 

Was  not  an  author  who  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
nine  was  capable  of  varying  his  tone  and  man- 
ner to  such  an  extent  evidently  destined  to 
take  his  place  in  the  foremost  ranks? 

The  worthy  folk  who  admire  fidelity  and  af- 
fection (and,  after  all,  there  are  a  great  many 
more  of  them  than  is  usually  believed)  could 
not  fail  to  glorify  this  great  and  simple  painter 
of  kindliness,  who  at  the  same  time  possessed 
the  gift  of  nailing  to  the  pillory  of  the  most 
mordant  satire  all  the  scoundrelly  knaves,  un- 
worthy masters,  dishonest  agents,  cowardly  and 
sinister  oppressors — all  of  whom  nevertheless, 


124  CHARLES  DICKENS 

have  their  comic  aspect.  One  critic  has  ob- 
served, with  a  good  deal  of  profundity,  that 
Mrs.  Quilp  could  never  have  been  for  an  in- 
stant bored  in  the  company  of  such  a  husband  ! 
Thus  the  Old  Curiosity  Shop  confirmed  the 
many-sided  yet  indivisible  glory  of  Dickens, 
magical  exhibitor  of  human  marionettes,  ro- 
bust psychologist,  tender-hearted  and  Christian 
philosopher,  at  the  same  time  that  he  was  a 
stinging  satirist  of  social  evils  and  a  unique, 
compelling,  hallucinating  visualiser  of  the 
streets  of  London,  and  of  the  swarms  of  grimac- 
ing butchers  and  cringing  victims  w^ho  come 
and  go,  day  and  night,  along  its  sidewalks,  lost, 
in  time  and  space,  in  the  immensity  of  that 
human  quagmire. 


CHAPTER   V 

THE  HISTORY  OF  A  RAVEN — THE  SMALL  ADVEN- 
TURES OF  A  GREAT  ENGLISHMAN  IN  GREAT 
AMERICA — OLD  ENGLAND  IN  ITALY  AND  ON 
THE  LAKE  OF  GENEVA — DOMBEY  IS  A  BALZA- 
CIAN  TYPE — ON  THE  STAGE  AND  THE  LEC- 
TURE PLATFORM 

DICKENS,  when  in  the  country,  loved  to 
surround  himself  with  animals,  and  more 
particularly  with  dogs.  And  yet  there  are 
hardly  any  dogs  to  be  cited  from  his  works,  as 
they  can  be  from  the  works  of  Sir  Walter  Scott, 
with  the  solitary  exception  of  Bill  Sykes's 
Bull's-eye,  which  plays  such  an  important  rôle 
in  his  flight  from  justice. 

The  raven,  Grip,  on  the  contrary,  is  an  emi- 
nently sympathetic  personage  and  very  much 
alive,  in  Barnahy  Rudge,  the  first  pages  of 
which  appeared  in  January,  1841,  only  one 
week  after  the  close  of  The  Old  Curiosity  Shop. 

125 


126  CHARLES  DICKENS 

An  episodic  personage,  undoubtedly,  but  one 
which  shows  how  well  Dickens  understood  the 
art  of  introducing  into  the  midst  of  the  most 
dramatic  action  that  timely  element  of  humour 
which  satisfies  so  admirably  the  requirements 
of  his  race.  Barnaby  Rudge,  a  visionary  young 
man,  has  terrible  antecedents.  His  father,  for- 
merly the  steward  of  Mr.  Haredale,  a  well-to-do 
property  owner  in  the  suburbs  of  London, 
killed  his  employer,  as  well  as  the  latter's  gar- 
dener, whom  he  dressed  in  his  own  clothes.  The 
ruse  succeeded,  and  everybody  believed  that  it 
was  Rudge,  the  steward,  who  had  been  killed. 
Many  years  pass  by,  but  at  last  the  victim's 
brother  unmasks  the  real  culprit,  who  is  seized 
and  thrown  into  prison. 

The  riots  of  1780  broke  out  just  in  time  to 
set  the  prisoner  at  liberty.  There  was  a  popu- 
lar uprising  and  a  mad  rush  of  crowding,  jost- 
ling Protestants  across  London,  shouting 
"Down  with  Popery!"  There  followed  mob 
violence  and  the  shock  of  brutal  and  unchained 
passions.     Gentle  Barnaby  Rudge  was  drawn 


HISTORY  OF  A  RAVEN  127 

into  the  popular  tidal  wave  which  the  ring- 
leaders were  directing  in  order  to  satisfy  their 
own  personal  interests.  One  of  them,  for  in- 
stance, Sir  John  Chester,  having  banished  his 
own  son  because  the  latter  had  fallen  in  love 
with  Mr.  Haredale's  niece,  took  advantage  of 
the  riots  under  the  cloak  of  politics  to  cause 
the  Haredale  residence  to  be  burned;  but  in 
spite  of  this  conflagration  the  young  man  and 
the  young  girl  put  the  crowning  touch  to  their 
idyll  by  marriage.  Meanwhile  the  party  of  or- 
der triumphs  over  the  disorderly  element,  and 
a  terrible  retribution  ensues;  and  while  Rudge, 
the  assassin,  is  executed  together  with  other 
guilty  parties,  among  them  the  hangman  of 
London,  gentle  Barnaby  Rudge,  the  son,  es- 
capes death  and  obtains  pardon  only  after  great 
difficulty. 

Well,  what  part  does  the  raven,  Grip,  play 
in  this  story?  He  introduces  that  picturesque 
note,  strange,  amusing,  and  unexpected,  which 
gives  the  tone  of  originality  to  all  of  Dickens's 
novels. 


128  CHARLES  DICKENS 

This  raven,  Grip,  by  the  way,  has  a  history 
of  his  own.  We  could  not  forgive  ourselves  if 
we  did  not  make  passing  mention  of  him,  with 
some  justifiable  emotion,  and  with  all  the  more 
reason  because  he  is  in  any  case  a  far  less 
lugubrious  personality  than  that  other  famous 
raven  of  Edgar  Allan  Poe. 

Grip  lived  not  quite  so  brief  a  life  as  the 
roses  live,  but  none  the  less  he  failed  to  attain 
a  very  advanced  age.  But  he  had  the  good  for- 
tune to  be  distinguished  by  Charles  Dickens, 
who  fed  and  petted  him  and  paid  him  the  high- 
est honour  by  introducing  him  into  a  novel  that 
is  more  or  less  historic. 

In  order  to  repay  his  master,  Grip  was  in  the 
habit  of  proclaiming  : 

"I  am  a  devil!    I  am  a  devil!" 

When  fate  brutally  put  an  end  to  his  days, 
probably  in  consequence  of  an  attack  of  indi- 
gestion. Grip  was  stuffed  and  remained  the 
property  of  Dickens. 

Now,  how  much  do  you  think  that  he 
brought  at  auction,  within  two  months  after 


HISTORY  OF  A  RAVEN  129 

the  death  of  the  author  of  Barnaby  Rudgef 
The  equivalent  of  six  hundred  dollars.  The 
purchaser  was  probably  some  wealthy  amateur, 
given  to  idolatry  and  fetichism?  Not  at  all.  It 
was  acquired  by  a  buyer  for  a  museum  of  natu- 
ral history. 

But  in  this  stirring  narration  of  a  civil  war 
— that  of  the  year  1780 — with  all  its  horrors 
and  calamities.  Grip  must  not  make  us  forget 
the  picturesque  figure  of  Barnaby  Rudge  him- 
self, nor  Simon  Tappertit  and  that  unrolling 
panorama  of  a  revolution,  seething  and  rum- 
bling, and  finally  breaking  forth  with  fire  and 
sword  in  the  midst  of  barricades.  Nevertheless, 
in  this  volume,  just  as  later  in  the  Tale  of  Two 
Cities,  Dickens  failed  to  rival  the  real  masters 
of  the  historic  novel. 

In  both  of  these  novels,  to  be  sure,  our  au- 
thor laid  his  plot  in  an  environment  which  he 
had  set  his  heart  upon  reconstructing;  and  he 
brought  to  his  task  a  wealth  of  documentary 
precision  which,  so  far  as  it  goes,  makes 
Barnaby  Rudge  and  the  Tale  of  Two  Cities  his- 


130  CHARLES  DICKENS 

toric  romances;  but  in  the  strict  sense  of  the 
word  they  contain  no  pages  of  history,  and  for 
that  matter  Dickens  the  novelist  had  no  in- 
tention of  doing  more  than  produce  a  piece  of 
fiction.  Just  as  in  the  first  of  these  volumes  he 
conjured  up  a  bygone  uprising  in  England,  in 
the  second  his  task  was  still  more  venturesome 
for  him,  a  foreigner,  for  it  was  the  French  Rev- 
olution in  the  midst  of  Paris  that  he  attempted 
to  reincarnate.  The  tone  of  the  narrative  is 
sober  and  intense,  and  the  dramatic  action  is 
well  developed.  A  nobleman,  Charles  de  Saint- 
Evremond,  imbued  with  the  philosophic  ideas 
then  in  fashion,  wished  to  make  his  actions  ac- 
cord with  his  ideas.  Consequently  he  aban- 
doned all  he  possessed,  title  of  nobility, 
seigneurial  rights,  even  his  very  name,  and  re- 
moved to  London.  But  the  Revolution  broke 
out  and  became  the  Reign  of  Terror;  and 
Charles,  learning  that  one  of  his  friends  was  in 
danger,  hastened  to  France.  It  was  then  that 
he  was  arrested  as  an  émigré,  dragged  before 
the  Revolutionary   tribunal   and   condemned; 


HISTORY  OF  A  RAVEN  131 

and  he  escaped  death  only  through  the  gener- 
ous intervention  of  an  Englishman  who  bore  a 
close  physical  resemblance  to  him  and  who  took 
his  place  in  one  of  the  consignments  of  victims 
for  the  guillotine. 

From  these  rapid  analyses  of  Barnaby  Rudge 
and  the  Tale  of  Tivo  Cities  we  can  form  an 
idea  of  the  new  direction,  both  in  subject  and 
in  tone,  which  Dickens's  genius  was  now  taking. 
He  was  trying  to  bring  to  life  not  merely  the 
characters  of  his  own  creation,  but  the  entire 
epoch  in  which  they  moved  and  had  their  be- 
ing. 

Undoubtedly  it  was  his  desire  to  secure  con- 
stant novelty  by  introducing  into  his  long  nov- 
els a  more  or  less  important  element  of  mystery 
and  romantic  intrigue,  and  to  make  his  pages 
swarm  with  the  greatest  possible  number  of 
those  significant  types  which  he  had  encoun- 
tered in  real  life. 

Nevertheless,  he  remained  always  and  every- 
where a  story  teller.  He  was  constitutionally 
unfitted  to  write  a  history  of  England,  even  a 


132  CHARLES  DICKENS 

child's  history  of  England.  He  could  not  help 
talking  of  himself,  his  own  sensations,  his  ex- 
alted sentiments,  his  vigilant  and  sardonic  ob- 
servations, for  everything  which  touched  the 
life  of  the  city  interested  him  who  was  city- 
bred  to  his  heart's  core. 

In  spite  of  his  descriptive  talent,  which  per- 
mitted him  to  reproduce  in  detail  whatever  he 
saw,  he  constantly  harped  upon  his  personal 
likes  and  hatreds,  and,  in  a  stage  setting  pre- 
pared in  accordance  with  the  most  scrupulous 
realism,  gave  way  to  lyric  exaltation  and  to 
what  we  may  call  his  political  and  social  hys- 
terics ! 

We  are  so  accustomed,  in  these  latter  days, 
to  similar  diatribes  contained  in  works  of  the 
greatest  outward  variety  that  ordinarily  we 
hardly  see  Dickens  at  all  in  his  revolutionary 
aspect.  We  think  of  him,  in  general,  as  an 
emotional,  humorous  and  pathetic  painter  of 
environments  and  characters.  We  readily  for- 
get his  outbursts  when  we  come  in  contact  with 
his  heroes,  his  angels,  and  his  demons.    If  he 


HISTORY  OF  A  RAVEN  133 

won  the  hearts  of  the  masses  by  his  sentimen- 
tality, he  was  no  less  famed  for  his  intense  un- 
derstanding of  the  needs  of  the  people  and  for 
his  advanced  radicalism. 

Such  he  was  judged  to  be  in  the  best  in- 
formed circles.  In  1853  Count  von  Hubner, 
one  of  the  chief  disciples  of  Metternich,  called 
Dickens,  with  good  reason,  one  of  the  ''cham- 
pions of  democracy"  in  the  United  Kingdom. 

He  was  flattered,  entertained,  lionised,  in 
England  and  in  Scotland,  where  he  was  held  in 
so  much  honour  that  the  city  of  Edinburgh  con- 
ferred the  freedom  of  the  city  upon  him  and 
hailed  him  as  a  hero,  although  he  was  not  yet 
thirty  years  of  age. 

After  a  few  months  of  delay  and  hesitation, 
(luring  which  time  his  father-in-law  died,  he 
decided  to  sail  with  his  wife  for  America  at  the 
beginning  of  1842. 

He  did  this  not  without  regret,  for  he  left 
behind  him  in  his  own  country  not  only  a 
number  of  very  warm  friends,  but  his  beloved 
children,  two  sons,  Charles  Cullerford  Boz,  five 


134  CHARLES  DICKENS 

years  of  age,  and  his  youngest-born,  Walter 
Landor,  and  two  daughters,  Mary,  later  to  be 
known  as  Mamie,  and  Kate  Macready,  aged, 
respectively,  three  years  and  two.  It  should  be 
noted  that  Dickens  preferably  chose  for  his 
children's  middle  iiames  the  names  of  his  own 
devoted  companions.  It  was  this  same  affec- 
tionate and  faithful  Macready  who  was  left 
to  watch  over  the  children  during  their  parents' 
absence. 

We  gather,  from  Dickens's  Correspondence, 
his  Notes,  and,  more  especially,  his  Martin 
Chuzzlewit,  that  he  also  discovered  America, 
or,  at  least,  a  certain  sort  of  America. 

Yielding  to  the  urging  of  Washington  Irving, 
whom  he  met  at  the  home  of  Lady  Blessing- 
ton,  to  his  own  love  of  novelty,  and  also  to  his 
desire  for  a  glimpse  of  this  valiant  young 
democracy,  Dickens  sailed  from  Liverpool.  The 
voyage  was  extremely  unpleasant,  for  the  ship 
encountered  a  violent  storm,  but  happily  came 
through  without  serious  damage. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Dickens  were  received  with 


HISTORY  OF  A  RAVEN  135 

open  iirms  in  Boston.  Hurrah  for  the  inimita- 
ble Boz!  Hail  to  the  great  champion  of  lib- 
erty! The  Americans  were  all  eagerness  to 
initiate  this  Englishman  into  all  their  progress 
and  all  their  advantages. 

At  first  Dickens  was  almost  worshipped  by 
them.  He  was  besieged  by  newspaper  re- 
porters, he  had  concerts  given  in  his  honour, 
he  was  showered  with  flowers,  and  surfeited 
with  toasts. 

He  enjoyed  a  similar  triumph  in  New  York; 
but  before  long  he  could  not  prevent  himself 
from  opening  his  eyes  to  certain  defects  in  this 
American  nation  whose  guest  he  was  ;  yet  it  was 
a  purely  personal  grievance  which  at  last  un- 
chained his  resentment;  little  by  little  he  ex- 
tended his  quarrel  to  the  United  States  as  a 
whole,  which,  in  turn,  met  him  halfway,  and 
not  without  reason — which  did  not  prevent 
them,  later  on,  from  concluding  honourable 
terms  of  peace. 

He  had  taken  it  into  his  head  to  defend  his 
copyright  and  that  of  his  English  colleagues  in 


136  CHARLES  DICKENS 

a  land  where  at  that  time  an  artist's  property- 
rights  were  an  empty  word.  They  were  very  far 
removed,  in  those  days,  from  the  salutary  copy- 
right law  of  the  present  day. 

Dickens  had  always  regarded  an  author's 
rights  as  something  sacred;  he  defended  his 
own,  as  well  as  those  of  others,  with  a  sort  of 
rage,  intense  bitterness  and  sarcastic  vehe- 
mence. 

When  American  publishers  pirated  his  works 
he  judged  it  necessary  to  declare  himself  robbed 
and  to  cry  the  fact  aloud,  perhaps  a  little  too 
loud.  But  Dickens  was  always  as  inflammable 
as  he  was  sincere. 

On  the  other  hand,  his  mercenary  claims 
must  doubtless  have  seemed  a  little  strange  to 
the  good  people  beyond  the  seas  who  had  hailed 
him  as  the  noble  hero  of  an  idea. 

Yet  the  excessive  optimism,  the  unique  pa- 
triotism, which  he  believed  that  he  had  discov- 
ered in  the  younger  nation,  delighted  him  be- 
yond bounds.  Like  many  other  men  who  are 
fundamentally  kind-hearted  and  generous,  he 


HISTORY  OF  A  RAVEN  137 

surrendered  himself  to  the  full  violence  of  his 
first  impressions. 

He  took  a  trip  across  the  United  States,  dur- 
ing which  he  violently  denounced  the  anti- 
abolitionists,  and  did  not  hesitate  to  give  evi- 
dence of  his  hatred  for  the  slave  owners. 

It  is  probable,  also,  that,  after  being  ac- 
customed to  the  elegance  of  certain  aristocratic 
drawing-rooms  in  London,  he  was  by  no  means 
pleasantly  impressed  by  the  vulgarity  of  certain 
Americans  with  far  more  money  than  educa- 
tion. 

"Mr.  Hannibal  Chollup  sat  smoking  .  .  . 
without  making  any  attempt  either  to  converse 
or  to  take  leave;  apparently  labouring  under 
the  not  uncommon  delusion  that  for  a  free  and 
enlightened  citizen  of  the  United  States  to  con- 
vert another  man's  house  into  a  spittoon  for 
two  or  three  hours  together  was  a  delicate  at- 
tention full  of  interest  and  politeness,  of  which 
nobody  could  ever  tire." 

The  foregoing  passage  can  be  found  in  Mar- 
tin Chuzzlewit,  along  with  many  others  of  the 


138  CHARLES  DICKENS 

same  tone.  Americans  had  expected  to  find  in 
Dickens  a  person  of  seraphic  temperament,  and 
instead  he  proved  to  be  a  man  who  combined 
with  genius  and  certain  splendid  qualities  some 
rather  ugly  defects  that  are  common  to  a  good 
many  other  men.  On  the  other  hand,  Dickens 
had  been  invited  to  come  across  the  ocean  to 
see  a  terrestrial  paradise.  But  he  found  that 
up  to  the  present,  at  least,  there  was  no  such 
thing  upon  earth.  Hence  the  misunderstand- 
ing which  was  destined  to  be  eliminated  only 
by  lapse  of  time.  Meanwhile  Dickens  was  only 
too  delighted  to  find  himself  once  more  on  Eng- 
lish soil  when  he  arrived  in  Canada  after  hav- 
ing stopped  to  admire  Niagara  Falls. 

He  was  lionised  in  Canada,  and  still  more 
so  on  his  return  to  England,  where,  to  his  in- 
expressible delight,  he  found  himself  once  more 
in  his  own  home  in  Devonshire  Place  with  his 
children  clasped  to  his  heart.  And  what  a 
warm  heart  it  was  !  It  was  always  open  to  one 
and  all,  even  at  the  same  time  that  he  was  most 
obstinately  tightening  the  strings  of  his  purse. 


HISTORY  OF  A  RAVEN  139 

His  American  Notes,  which  were  the  outcome 
of  his  correspondence  with  Macready  and  of  a 
sort  of  journal  of  his  impressions,  contained 
no  hint  of  the  quite  justifiable  campaign  which 
he  was  carrying  on  in  regard  to  his  copyrights. 
But  he  did  put  into  them  his  reflections  and 
criticisms  on  America,  some  of  them  judicious, 
some  of  them  cuttingly  sarcastic,  and  nearly  all 
of  them  strongly  prejudiced. 

The  Americans,  furious  to  find  themselves 
judged  inferior  to  a  people  whom  the  great 
novelist  and  social  reformer  had  openly  ridi- 
culed for  their  oligarchical  cabinets,  their  parish 
officials,  and  the  whole  assemblage  of  their  so- 
cial traditions,  took  vengeance  on  him  by  call- 
ing him  a  fool  and  a  liar. 

But  Dickens  was  not  willing  to  cry  quits.  In 
1843  he  regaled  his  fellow-countrymen  with  the 
first  installment  of  a  new  novel,  Martin  Chuz- 
zlewit,  which,  it  may  be  remarked  in  passing, 
failed  to  meet  with  the  success  of  its  forerun- 
ners. 

Nevertheless,     it     contains     certain     types 


140  CHARLES  DICKENS 

marked  with  the  seal  of  his  violent,  melan- 
choly and  ironic  genius,  types  such  as  the  in- 
imitable Mrs.  Gamp  and  Pecksniff,  who  re- 
mains one  of  the  most  strongly  individualised 
among  all  of  Dickens's  characters.  And  there 
are  also  three  others  especially  deserving  of  no- 
tice, Chollup,  Jefferson  Brick  and  Pogram,  or, 
in  other  words,  America  and  the  Americans 
served  up  in  caricature  by  Dickens,  the  prince 
of  caricaturists. 

How  far  did  this  satire  reach?  That  is  what 
a  cool-headed  philosopher  would  ask  himself. 
Might  not  these  arrows  which  Dickens 
launched  against  certain  primitive  and  vain- 
glorious citizens  of  free  and  independent  Amer- 
ica apply  in  some  cases  equally  well  to  free 
and  independent  England  and  similar  repre- 
sentatives of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  the  world 
over?  In  any  case  the  Americans  themselves 
were  not  slow  to  forget  the  errors  of  a  great 
man,  while  they  busied  themselves  in  correcting 
their  own  errors  and  in  learning  to  enjoy  the 
savour  of  a  buffoonery  which,  from  its  very 


HISTORY  OF  A  RAVEN  141 

enormity,  could  give  diversion  to  even  the  most 
blasé  minds. 

Dickens,  on  his  part,  made  honourable  atone- 
ment. He  maintained  the  most  cordial  rela- 
tions with  the  celebrated  writers  of  America, 
and  gave  Longfellow  a  most  worthy  reception 
at  the  time  of  the  latter's  visit  to  Europe. 

In  his  History  of  English  Literature  Taine 
has  powerfully  analysed  and  defined  what  we 
may  call  the  apostolate  of  Dickens. 

"All  of  Dickens's  novels,"  says  Taine,  "could 
be  summed  up  in  one  final  phrase,  conceived  as 
follows:  Be  good  and  love  one  another;  there 
are  no  true  joys  aside  from  the  affections  of  the 
heart;  sensibility  is  the  w^hole  of  man.  Leave 
science  to  the  learned,  pride  to  the  nobles,  lux- 
ury to  the  rich  ;  have  compassion  upon  humble 
wretchedness;  the  smallest  and  the  most  de- 
spised of  beings  may  alone  be  worth  as  much 
as  thousands  of  the  powerful  and  arrogant;  be 
careful  not  to  bruise  these  delicate  souls  which 
blossom  under  all  conditions,  beneath  all  sorts 
of  raiment,  and  at  all  ages.    Believe  that  hu- 


142  CHARLES  DICKENS 

manity,  pity  and  pardon  are  the  most  beautiful 
things  in  human  nature;  believe  that  intimate 
affection,  open-heartedness,  sympathy  and 
tears  are  the  tenderest  joys  in  the  world.  To 
live  is  nothing  ;  it  is  a  small  matter  to  be  pow- 
erful, wise  and  famous;  it  is  not  enough  to  be 
merely  useful.  He  alone  has  lived  and  is  a 
man  who  has  wept  at  the  memory  of  a  benefit 
that  he  has  rendered  or  has  received." 

The  foregoing  precisely  sums  up  what  M. 
Cazamian,  in  his  learned  thesis  on  the  social 
novel  in  England,  has  happily  characterised 
as  Dickens's  Christmas  philosophy — a  philoso- 
phy which  emanates  from  all  his  writings,  even 
in  the  midst  of  his  most  grotesque  conceptions. 
In  his  company  we  are  far  removed  from  the 
mysticism  of  Tolstoy,  from  the  revolt  of  Gorki, 
and  all  the  theorists  of  socialism.  His  is  a 
breath  of  simple  and  human  tenderness,  which 
pierces  the  fog,  the  mystery  and  the  poetic  and 
thoroughly  British  sentimentality  of  the 
Christmas  Carol,  just  as  it  does  the  works  of 
analogous  inspiration  which  followed  it. 


HISTORY  OF  A  RAVEN  143 

Oh,  that  ChrisUnas  Carol!  What  memories 
it  has  left  with  us,  even  to  this  day,  from  the 
midst  of  all  the  reading  done  in  the  course  of 
our  younger  years!  We  can  still  see  that 
Christmas  night  in  the  city  streets,  snowy, 
slushy,  and  yet  tumultuous.  W^e  can  still  see 
old  Scrooge,  the  avaricious  and  rich  banker,  the 
egoist;  we  follow  him  to  his  home,  to  his  room; 
he  approaches  his  bed  and  his  easy-chair,  .  .  . 
and  then  suddenly  there  is  Marley,  Marley's 
ghost!  We  shiver  even  now  at  the  bare  re- 
membrance of  it.  And  that  detail  of  the  but- 
tons on  the  back  of  his  coat,  visible  through  the 
transparency  of  his  immaterial  form!  And 
then  there  are  those  three  Spirits  of  Christmas, 
Past,  Present  and  To  Come!  That  of  yester- 
day teaches  Scrooge  the  despair  of  affections 
lost  through  the  fault  of  his  egoism  ;  that  of  to- 
day shows  him  the  joy  of  living  on  this  present 
Christmas  night;  and  that  of  tomorrow,  terri- 
ble in  its  impenetrable  silence,  allows  him  to 
divine  the  miserable  end  that  awaits  a  solitary 
old  miser.     And  Scrooge  awakens.    The  trans- 


144  CHARLES  DICKENS 

formation  has  been  accomplished;  Scrooge  is 
joyous,  Scrooge  is  generous,  Scrooge  has  learned 
to  seek  happiness  solely  in  the  joy  of  spreading 
happiness  around  him  ! 

How  grateful  we  felt  towards  Dickens  when 
at  last  we  reached  the  end  of  the  tale,  after  so 
many  shivers  and  so  many  thrills!  Even  in 
those  days  we  used  to  amuse  ourselves  by  seek- 
ing for  other  possible  solutions  to  the  stories 
that  we  read  ;  but  it  is  the  simple  truth  that  we 
were  unable  to  find  for  the  Christmas  Carol 
any  other  which  would  satisfy  us  so  well  or  so 
completely  as  that  perfectly  natural  and  con- 
soling and  joyous  ending. 

The  Chimes  also  vibrated  through  our  early 
dreams.  But  this  second  tale,  with  the  meas- 
ureless pity  which  emanates  from  it  for  pov- 
erty and  sin,  with  its  fantastic  intervention  of 
the  Bells  and  their  Spirit,  with  its  vision  of  the 
unhappy  woman  about  to  throw  herself  into 
the  Thames,  caused  us  the  most  profound  an- 
guish. How  grateful  we  were  to  Dickens  for 
finally  awakening  his  hero  !    We  felt  as  though 


HISTORY  OF  A  RAVEN  145 

he  had  simultaneously  awakened  us  also  from 
a  nightmare,  and  the  only  memories  that  we 
cared  to  keep  were  those  admirable  descrip- 
tions of  the  city  seen  through  a  veil  of  fog. 

In  1843  Dickens  seemed  to  have  returned  to 
the  earlier  manner  of  Oliver  Twist,  giving  it, 
however,  a  greater  charm  and  amplitude.  He 
always  felt  most  strongly,  when  he  was  in  Lon- 
don, the  suggestive  stimulus  of  the  vast  city — 
and  he  always  loved  its  atmosphere,  even  when 
he  left  it  for  the  purpose  of  new  pilgrimages. 

After  feasts  and  banquets,  after  having  re- 
ceived a  still  insufficient  number  of  bank  notes, 
after  having  mercilessly  prosecuted  the  imita- 
tors of  The  Christmas  Carol,  collaborated  once 
again,  and  at  far  higher  rates,  on  the  Morning 
Chronicle,  and  drawn  upon  his  new  publishers 
for  nearly  three  thousand  pounds  sterling,  he 
decided  to  withdraw  from  this  much  too  en- 
grossing London  life,  to  flee  distractions,  and 
take  refuge  on  the  Continent. 

He  informed  himself  about  Italy,  through 
Count  d'Orsay  and  the  artist  Turner,  secured 


146  CHARLES  DICKENS 

an  experienced  courier,  acquired  a  picturesque 
old  stage-coach  and  a  passport,  and  there  he  is 
on  his  way! 

He  remembered  to  take  with  him  his  familiar 
little  articles  and  ornaments,  in  order  that  he 
might  work,  for  this  journey  was  in  the  nature 
of  an  exodus.  His  wife  and  sister-in-law  ac- 
companied him,  as  well  as  the  rest  of  his  small 
family,  augmented  by  a  new  recruit,  Francis 
Jeffrey;  in  other  words,  two  daughters  and  three 
sons,  besides  a  lady's  maid. 

They  crossed  through  France  and  reached 
Marseilles,  where  they  took  the  boat  for  Genoa. 
There,  at  first,  they  occupied  the  Villa  Bag- 
nerello,  in  the  suburb  of  Albaro,  which  Dickens 
referred  to  in  his  letters  as  the  Pink  Prison  ;  and 
afterwards  magnificent  apartments  in  the  Pe- 
schiere  Palace,  splendidly  situated  among  gar- 
dens and  churches,  and  facing  the  matchless 
splendour  of  the  sea,  whose  azure  waters  merge 
into  the  azure  and  serene  enchantment  of  the 
Italian  sky. 

Nevertheless,  and  this  remains  characteristic 


HISTORY  OF  A  RAVEN  147 

of  him,  in  spite  of  his  Pictures  jrom  Italy,  he 
thought  of  little  else  than  London,  and  contin- 
ued to  work  upon  his  series  of  Christmas  tales, 
fantastic,  lugubrious,  radiant,  and  filled  with 
fog,  hail,  snow,  fear  and  tenderness. 

Poor  Toby  Veck,  in  The  Chimes,  which  he 
wrote  in  Genoa,  is  even  more  destitute  than 
Bob  Cratchit,  the  hero  of  the  Christmas  Carol. 

Is  there  anything  more  significant  to  a  critic 
anxious  to  interpret  the  real  personality  of 
Charles  Dickens  than  to  see  him,  in  the  midst 
of  orange  groves,  tracing  with  the  most  pro- 
found intensity,  and,  doubtless,  many  a  nos- 
talgic pang,  all  the  anguish  and  exasperation  of 
the  populace  in  an  atmosphere  of  fog  and 
gloom,  as  dense  and  hopeless  as  that  in  which 
he  shows  us  Scrooge,  the  miser  of  The  Christ- 
mas Carol,  prior  to  his  conversion.  Behind  the 
story-teller,  eager  to  lead  us  through  inimitable 
nightmares,  among  the  Spirits  of  the  Past  and 
Present,  we  discover  the  daring  social  reformer, 
holding  up  to  scorn  the  false  and  injurious 
forms  of  philanthropy. 


148  CHARLES  DICKENS 

'Tut  them  down,  put  everything  down!"  is 
the  burden  of  the  advice  of  Alderman  Cute. 

Never  has  a  writer  succeeded,  as  Dickens  has, 
in  making  his  far-carrying  voice  the  sonorous 
echo  of  all  the  other  still,  small  voices  that  are 
stifled  in  darkness  and  silence.  And  thus,  by  the 
exposure  of  the  fallacy  of  Cute  and  his  ilk,  the 
question  of  Christmas  assumes  formidable  pro- 
portions. 

There  is  far  more  of  Dickens  in  this  Christ- 
mas tale  than  in  his  Pictures  from  Italy,  which 
form  a  record  of  his  travels. 

The  splendour  of  the  small  cities,  the  white 
marble  of  Ferrara,  the  ardent  death-in-life  of 
Venice  could  not  dull  his  heartache  for  Lon- 
don. He  made  a  flying  visit  back  there  to  re- 
vive his  energies,  and  also  to  read  The  Chimes 
to  his  friends.  He  read  it,  and  with  such  suc- 
cess that  it  would  seem  as  though  all  his  subse- 
quent numerous  public  readings  were  inaugu- 
rated by  these  pleasantly  intimate  little  gather- 
ings at  which  he  sought  the  approbation  of 


HISTORY  OF  A  RAVEN  149 

Forster,  IMaclise,  Douglas  Jerrold  and  espe- 
cially of  i\Ir.  and  Mrs.  Carlyle. 

Carlyle,  the  bear  of  Chelsea^  constantly  ex- 
ercised a  sort  of  fascination  over  the  mind  of 
Dickens. 

Restless  as  ever,  Dickens  returned  by  way  of 
Paris,  where  before  long  he  was  to  make  an  ex- 
tended stay,  and  rejoined  his  family  at  Genoa, 
whence  he  made  a  number  of  excursions  to 
Rome,  Naples  and  Florence. 

This  sojourn  in  Italy  lasted  little  less  than  a 
year.  The  family  all  returned  to  England  to- 
gether, through  Switzerland,  which  delighted 
the  novelist,  and  Belgium,  where  Maclise  and 
Forster  rejoined  their  friends.  In  June,  1845, 
Dickens  was  once  more  enjoying  the  comforts 
of  his  British  fireside.  The  house  had  neces- 
sarily been  rented  during  his  absence. 

Under  the  spur  of  an  activity  which,  almost 
to  the  last  days  of  his  life,  never  abated,  Dick- 
ens conceived  the  idea  of  organising  an  amateur 
theatrical  company.  Already,  during  his  so- 
journ in  Canada,  he  had  acted  with  his  wife  in 


150  CHARLES  DICKENS 

a  performance  given  for  the  benefit  of  some 
charitable  purpose. 

With  his  customary  intensity  he  threw  him- 
self heart  and  soul  into  his  new  function  of 
comedian,  imbuing  it  wdth  the  spirit  of  true 
comedy,  while  his  mobile  features  aped  with 
inimitable  mimicry  the  most  diverse  physiogno- 
mies, according  to  the  parts  assigned  him.  In 
this  way  he  raised  some  rather  considerable 
sums  to  meet  the  needs  of  certain  charitable  in- 
stitutions in  England. 

This  diversion  of  amateur  acting,  into  which 
he  had  drawn  several  of  his  friends,  and  in 
which  he  amused  himself  quite  as  much  as  he 
amused  others,  he  was  destined  to  revert  to 
again  some  years  later  for  the  purpose  of  rais- 
ing the  necessary  funds  for  founding  a  house  of 
refuge  for  aged  and  indigent  authors. 

Wishing,  no  doubt,  to  exercise  some  political 
influence,  and  at  the  same  time  to  realise 
a  long-treasured  project,  Charles  Dickens 
dreamed  of  founding  a  newspaper,  the  title  of 
which  was  to  be  The  Cricket. 


ILLUSTRATIONS   FROM   THE   WORKS   OF   DICKENS 

Two  scenes  from  Bleak  House.    Above:  "The  Dancing  School." — Below: 
"Mr.  Guppy's  Entertainment." 


HISTORY  OF  A  RAVEN  151 

Although  we  never  had  The  Cricket,  for  it 
never  raised  its  voice  in  the  land,  we  at  least 
have  a  new  Christmas  tale,  The  Cricket  on  the 
Hearth,  in  which,  in  the  humble  home  of  a 
coachman  and  a  toy  maker,  we  share  the  lives 
of  John  and  Caleb. 

The  paper  he  had  dreamed  of  appeared  at 
the  beginning  of  the  year  1846,  but  it  was  des- 
tined to  make  its  way  in  the  world  under  the 
title  of  the  Daily  News,  and  the  celebrated  nov- 
elist was  its  first  editor — during  the  space  of 
three  weeks. 

The  importance  of  the  position  of  editor  and 
the  salary  of  approximately  ten  thousand  dol- 
lars a  year,  as  well  as  the  opportunity  of  ad- 
dressing the  public  directly  every  day,  were  a 
big  temptation.  But  the  position  was  no  sine- 
cure. Far  otherwise.  Within  a  few  days  Dick- 
ens had  wearied  of  his  duties.  Unable  to  re- 
main contented  in  any  one  place,  he  was  al- 
ready dreaming  of  a  new  departure,  a  second  so- 
journ on  the  Continent,  and  a  new  book,  which 


152  CHARLES  DICKENS 

later  evolved  into  the  voluminous  Domhey  and 
Son, 

This  book  he  wrote  at  Lausanne,  after  a  stay 
of  some  little  time  in  Belgium,  Alsace  and  Ger- 
many. He  installed  himself  in  a  villa  overlook- 
ing Lake  Leman,  in  company  with  his  family, 
once  more  increased  by  the  birth  of  a  son — the 
fourth — Alfred  Tennyson.  This  same  Alfred, 
whose  first  and  middle  names  are  those  of  the 
celebrated  poet  laureate,  settled  in  after  life  in 
Australia,  whence  he  returned  only  a  few  years 
ago.  Charles  Dickens  himself  has  never  yet 
been  so  far  from  us  ! 

He  liked  Lausanne,  as  he  had  earlier  liked 
Genoa.  But  he  had  the  same  haunting  longing 
for  London  fogs,  in  spite  of  the  beauty  of  situa- 
tion and  the  friendliness  of  the  English  colony, 
which  lavished  attentions  upon  him.  He  read 
aloud,  with  his  accustomed  talent,  the  first 
chapters  of  Dombey. 

The  publication  of  a  new  Christmas  tale.  The 
Battle  of  Life,  neither  added  greatly  to  his  rep- 
utation nor  detracted  from  it.    Before  long  he 


HISTORY  OF  A  RAVEN  153 

wearied  of  the  comfort  of  the  Villa  Rosemont 
at  Lausanne,  and  of  the  excursions  which  he 
made  to  Geneva,  to  the  Great  St.  Bernard  and 
the  whole  surrounding  region. 

In  Paris  he  stayed  in  the  Rue  de  Courcelles, 
in  company  with  Forster,  and  became  initiated 
into  French  life.  The  gaiety  and  movement  of 
the  City  of  Light  singularly  captivated  him. 
He  soon  came  to  feel  almost  at  home  in  it;  for 
did  he  not  actually  sign  certain  letters,  subse- 
quent to  that  date,  namely  1846,  "a  naturalised 
Frenchman"?  And  he  derived  no  less  pleasure 
from  his  second  visit,  when  he  returned  to  Paris 
ten  years  later. 

At  the  time  of  his  first  sojourn  he  passed  his 
days  in  visiting  the  museums,  and  the  National 
Library,  and  at  the  same  time  continuing  his 
work  on  Dombey  and  Son.  In  the  evening  he 
went  either  to  the  theatre  or  to  the  circus.  Pa- 
geants and  vaudevilles  delighted  him,  too  much 
if  anything  !  He  made  the  acquaintance  of  the 
actor  Régnier,  and  consequently  attended  a  per- 
formance of  Lucretia  Borgia. 


154  CHARLES  DICKENS 

Victor  Hugo,  who  at  that  time  was  living  in 
the  Palais  Royal,  received  the  novelist  most 
courteously  when  he  called  upon  him.  Fors- 
ter,  in  his  Life  of  Dickens,  gives  the  following 
interesting  account  of  their  meeting: 

"Closed  that  day  at  the  house  of  Victor 
Hugo,  by  whom  Dickens  was  received  with  in- 
finite courtesy  and  grace.  The  great  writer 
then  occupied  a  floor  in  a  noble  corner  house 
in  the  Place  Royale,  the  old  quarter  of  Ninon 
de  l'Enclos  and  the  people  of  the  Regency,  of 
whom  the  gorgeous  tapestries,  the  painted  ceil- 
ings, the  wonderful  carvings  and  the  old  gold 
furniture,  including  a  canopy  of  state  out  of 
some  palace  of  the  Middle  Ages,  quaintly  and 
grandly  reminded  us.  He  was  himself,  however, 
the  best  thing  we  saw.  I  find  it  difficult  to  as- 
sociate the  attitudes  and  aspects  in  which  the 
world  has  lately  wondered  at  him  with  the  so- 
ber grace  and  self-possessed  quiet  gravity  of 
that  night  of  twenty-five  years  ago.  Just  then 
Louis  Philippe  had  ennobled  him,  but  the  man's 
nature  was  written  noble.     Rather  under  the 


HISTORY  OF  A  RAVEN  155 

middle  size,  of  compact,  close-buttoned-up  fig- 
ure, with  ample,  dark  hair  falling  loosely  over 
his  close-shaven  face,  I  never  saw  upon  any 
features  so  keenly  intellectual  such  a  soft  and 
sweet  gentility,  and  certainly  never  heard  the 
French  language  spoken  with  the  picturesque 
distinctness  given  to  it  by  Victor  Hugo.  He 
talked  of  his  childhood  in  Spain,  and  of  his 
father  having  been  Governor  of  the  Tagus  in 
Napoleon's  wars;  spoke  warmly  of  the  English 
people  and  their  literature;  declared  his  pref- 
erence for  melody  and  simplicity  over  the  mu- 
sic then  fashionable  at  the  Conservatoire;  re- 
ferred kindly  to  Ponsard,  laughed  at  the  actors 
who  had  murdered  his  tragedy  at  the  Odéon, 
and  sympathised  with  the  dramatic  venture  of 
Dumas.  To  Dickens  he  addressed  very  charm- 
ing flattery,  in  the  best  taste;  and  my  friend 
long  remembered  the  enjoyment  of  that  eve- 
ning.'' 

And  Dickens  himself  referred  in  the  follow- 
ing terms  to  the  same  occasion,  in  a  letter  to 
Lady  Blessington: 


156  CHARLES  DICKENS 

"I  was  much  struck  by  Hugo  himself,  who 
looks  like  a  genius,  as  he  is,  every  inch  of  him, 
and  is  very  interesting  and  satisfactory  from 
head  to  foot.  His  wife  is  a  handsome  woman 
with  flashing  black  eyes.  There  is  also  a  charm- 
ing ditto  daughter  of  fifteen  or  sixteen,  with 
ditto  eyes.  Sitting  among  old  armour  and  old 
tapestry,  and  old  coppers,  and  grim  old  chairs 
and  tables,  and  old  canopies  of  state,  from  old 
palaces,  and  old  golden  lions  going  to  play  at 
skittles  with  ponderous  old  golden  balls,  they 
made  a  most  romantic  show,  and  looked  like  a 
chapter  out  of  one  of  his  own  books." 

At  this  same  period,  but  before  his  arrival 
in  Paris,  he  met  Baudelaire  and  also  the 
painter,  Stevens,  w^hile  passing  through  Brus- 
sels. 

He  once  more  ran  across  Lamartine,  with 
whom  he  had  become  acquainted  at  Genoa. 
The  editor  of  the  Revue  Britannique,  Amédée 
Pichot,  assured  him  of  his  co-operation  in  circu- 
lating his  books.  He  enjoyed  the  society  of 
some  of  the  most  noted  wTiters  of  the  period, 


HISTORY  OF  A  RAVEN  157 

Dumas  père,  Théophile  Gautier,  Eugène  Sue, 
and  a  host  of  others. 

His  curiosity  led  him,  among  other  places,  to 
the  Morgue,  and  also  to  the  public  sale  of  the 
effects  of  Marie  Duplessis,  the  famous  Lady  of 
the  Camélias,  an  event  which  gave  him  occa- 
sion to  laugh,  not  unkindly,  at  the  emotional 
nature  of  the  Parisians:  ''Everything  has 
given  place  to  an  event  of  such  importance.  At 
sight  of  the  general  admiration  and  consterna- 
tion one  would  think  that  it  was  a  question  of 
some  hero  or  some  Jeanne  d'Arc;  but  the  en- 
thusiasm became  unlimited  when  Eugène  Sue 
bought  the  famous  demi-mondaine's  prayer- 
book." 

In  Paris,  just  as  in  his  proper  domain  of 
London,  he  w^andered  from  street  to  street.  In 
the  whole  air  of  the  people  he  discovered  ''a 
certain  something,  impossible  to  describe,  which 
heralds  a  revolution."  A  perfectly  correct  im- 
pression, which  perhaps  at  that  very  moment 
gave  him  the  inspiration  for  his  Tale  of  Two 
Cities.    But  by  the  middle  of  1847  we  find  him 


158  CHARLES  DICKENS 

back  in  London,  where  shortly  afterwards  Dom- 
bey  and  Son  was  published. 

Dombey  and  Son  was  one  of  the  great  suc- 
cesses of  Dickens's  fruitful  career.  It  has  been 
remarked  with  a  good  deal  of  justice  that  this 
novel  is  the  last  one  belonging  to  his  first  man- 
ner. David  Copperfield  shortly  afterwards  tri- 
umphantly inaugurated  his  second.  And  there 
would  doubtless  have  been  a  third  and  a  very 
marked  one,  if  death  had  not  surprised  him  be- 
fore the  completion  of  his  very  mysterious 
Mystery  of  Edwin  Drood. 

But  we  should  always  avoid  sharp-cut  dis- 
tinctions. It  is  only  too  easy  to  put  labels  on 
men  and  things.  It  is  quite  practical  from  the 
pedagogic  point  of  view,  but  it  is  contrary  to 
reality  and  to  life. 

Certainly,  even  before  David  Copperfield, 
Dickens  was  quite  human,  but  he  was  human 
in  the  manner  of  farce,  melodrama  and  carica- 
ture, following  certain  simple  devices  and 
methods  of  exaggeration.  But  henceforward, 
beginning  with  Dombey,  he  began  to  adhere 


HISTORY  OF  A  RAVEN  159 

more  closely  to  possibilities,  and  to  choose 
themes  that  lie  nearer  to  our  own  experiences. 

Dombey,  that  solemn  and  formidable  man  of 
business,  so  harsh  towards  his  wife,  so  cruel  to 
his  daughter,  Florence,  cherishes  for  his  son 
and  heir  a  tender  affection  mingled  with  the 
proud  hope  that  he  will  live  to  carry  on  the  suc- 
cession of  a  house  singularly  adapted  to  com- 
merce. The  death  of  little  Paul  Dombey  de- 
stroys this  hope.  In  such  touches  as  these 
the  art  of  Dickens  shows  a  curiously  close  kin- 
ship to  that  of  Balzac.  There  are,  furthermore, 
in  this  volume  numerous  other  characters,  all 
perfect  in  their  respective  orders,  such  as  that 
of  the  sentimental  Toots  and  the  aged  and  gal- 
lant Major  Bagstock. 

From  Paris  Dickens  had  written  to  his  friend, 
Forster  :  "My  passion  for  the  stage  has  grown 
in  this  country  where  the  art  of  the  theatre  has 
really  arrived  at  a  state  of  perfection." 

He  was  no  sooner  settled  once  again  in  Eng- 
land than  he  busied  himself  anew  with  his  pro- 
ject of  an  amateur  theatre.     His  business  af- 


160  CHARLES  DICKENS 

fairs,  thanks  to  the  publication  of  Dovihey, 
were  once  more  prospering,  and  he  was  free  to 
give  himself  up  to  his  favourite  hobby,  which 
lent  itself  to  his  noble  impulses  of  charity.  He 
became  a  sort  of  theatrical  manager,  and  ob- 
tained the  co-operation  of  other  authors  and  of 
artists  of  such  standing  as  Cruikshank. 

It  should  be  noted  that  Dickens's  own  choice 
of  plays  included  the  various  works  of  Gold- 
smith and  Bulwer  Lytton.  On  one  occasion  his 
name  appeared  on  a  billboard  advertising  a 
farce  by  Mark  Lemon,  which  he  had  rewritten  : 
Mr.  Nightingale's  Journal,  and  which  was  pro- 
duced under  the  auspices  of  the  Duke  of  Devon- 
shire ;  but,  in  spite  of  his  fine  sense  of  humour 
and  his  exuberance,  he  really  never  got  beyond 
the  amateur  stage  of  acting.  He  did  not  work 
for  the  theatre;  his  theatre  was  the  life  of  the 
real  world. 

It  is  worth  noting,  however,  that  his  co-oper- 
ation was  the  source  of  big  profits;  nine  per- 
formances given  in  London,  at  the  Haymarket 


HISTORY  OF  A  RAVEN  161 

Theatre,  one  of  which  was  attended  by  Queen 
A^ictoria,  brought  in  a  sum  total  of  nearly  thir- 
teen thousand  dollars. 

At  about  this  same  period  he  delivered  a 
series  of  lectures  at  Glasgow,  Leeds  and  various 
other  cities,  and  discovered  that  he  had  become 
the  idol  of  the  public. 

With  a  dogged  perseverance,  which  in  reality 
was  one  of  his  most  significant  traits,  he  re- 
verted to  his  idea  of  founding  a  periodical,  and 
thought  quite  seriously  of  calling  it  Charles 
Dickens  Edited  by  Himself;  but  finally  hit 
upon  the  attractive  title  of  Household  Words, 
which  so  well  embodies  the  general  tendency  of 
his  Christmas  Tales.  Dickens  was  certainly 
the  great  conjurer  of  the  honest  and  tender  in- 
timacies of  home. 

This  time  his  enterprise  succeeded  bril- 
liantly; besides,  he  had  surrounded  himself 
with  reliable  and  distinguished  collaborators, 
such  as  Wills,  who  undertook  the  managing 
editorship,    Mrs.    Gaskell,    Mrs.    Martineau, 


162  CHARLES  DICKENS 

Wilkie  Collins,  who  was  one  of  his  discoveries, 
and  many  others. 

The  success  was  a  lasting  one.  In  1859,  how- 
ever, the  title  of  the  magazine  was  changed  to 
All  the  Year  Around. 


Specimen  of  Dickens's  Handwriting 
(Fragment  from  the  manuscript  of  David  Copperfield) 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  MAGIC  LANTERN — WHY,  THERE  IS  UNCLE 
PUMBLECHOOK — MR.  DICK  FLIES  KITES — 
RAGS,  BOTTLES,  FOR  SALE  !  POOR  JO  TRIES  TO 
TAKE  FRENCH  LEAVE — MY  LORDS  AND  GEN- 
TLEMEN       .       .      . 

IN  all  that  Dickens  wrote,  in  all  that  he  did, 
in  all  that  he  has  left  us,  even  down  to  the 
slightest  of  his  notes,  signed  "A  Lost  Dog," 
there  is  a  certain  feverish  intensity  of  life 
which  extends  to  the  most  riotous  buffoonery. 
In  his  fertile  maturity  Dickens  possessed  an  ex- 
uberance which  may  rightly  be  compared  to 
the  somewhat  unbalanced  phantasy  of  a  moun- 
tebank, the  exaggerated  gesticulations  of  an 
acrobatic  clown. 

All  this  is  quite  literally  true.  While  in 
America  he  was  once  struck  by  the  resemblance 
offered  by  a  row  of  cottages  to  the  shops  in  the 
stage  setting  of  a  pantomime.    Straightway  this 

163 


164  CHARLES  DICKENS 

friend  of  Carlyle,  and  rival  of  Thackeray,  and 
one  of  the  greatest  of  English  writers,  bounded 
towards  one  of  the  doors,  struck  several  violent 
blows  upon  it,  and  stretched  himself  at  full 
length  on  the  ground  in  order  that  the  bewil- 
dered occupant  of  the  cottage  might  stumble 
over  him  and  fall  head  over  heels.  But  no  one 
came  to  the  door.  So  Dickens  presently  picked 
himself  up  again  and  continued  on  his  way  se- 
renely. 

It  is  also  related  that  on  another  day,  or 
rather  night,  and  this  also  happened  in  Amer- 
ica, he  amused  himself  and  several  enthusiastic 
admirers  as  well  by  going  from  door  to  door  and 
ringing  the  bells.  In  England  he  showed  him- 
self equally  fond  of  rather  rough  practical  jokes 
and  did  not  hesitate  to  declare  himself  madly  in 
love  with  Queen  Victoria. 

In  point  of  fact  Dickens  was,  on  the  one 
hand,  a  wonderful  English  humourist,  the  de- 
scendant of  a  line  of  marvellous  story-tellers, 
capable,  amid  the  tingling  activities  of  life,  of 
combining  tears  and  tender  smiles  and  the  con- 


THE  MAGIC  LANTERN  165 

tortions  of  strident  laughter.  He  himself  was 
the  most  amazing  of  the  line,  because  he  was 
convinced  of  that  strange  and  profound  truth 
that  the  wisest  men  are  often  the  biggest  fools. 

On  the  other  hand,  and  this  must  be  insisted 
upon  again  and  again,  Dickens  always  remained 
a  romanticist.  Considered  philosophically,  he 
appears  to  us  in  the  first  place  as  a  rather  dan- 
dified person,  with  sufficient  distinction  of  ap- 
pearance and  manners  to  enable  him  to  model 
himself  upon  his  friend,  the  Count  d'Orsay,  the 
fashionable  hero  of  the  hour.  But  in  reality 
he  remained  very  much  a  '^man  of  the  people," 
and  he  was  justly  reproached  for  certain  habits 
and  defects  characteristic  of  the  lower  and  mid- 
dle classes  that  he  has  so  well  depicted. 

When  Queen  Victoria  conceived  the  happy 
thought  of  wishing  to  meet  Dickens,  as  one  of 
the  men  who  have  done  the  greatest  honour  to 
England,  he  refused  to  present  himself  before 
her  in  costume  as  an  amateur  actor,  yetjwas 
quite  at  a  loss  to  know  what  garb  to  assume 


1G6  CHARLES  DICKENS 

that  would  really  be  worthy  of  him  and  of  his 
works. 

But  this  did  not  prevent  him  from  deliber- 
ately making  himself  conspicuous  by  his  man- 
ner of  dress.  Although  a  far  less  solemn  person 
than  Richard  Wagner,  Charles  Dickens  also  af- 
fected vests  of  velvet,  flamboyant  waistcoats 
and  hats,  and  coats  cut  on  French  models.  He 
was  delighted  to  have  attention  paid  to  his  per- 
sonal appearance,  and  to  have  people  wonder 
and  admire.  This  was  not  a  pose  in  his  case. 
It  was  quite  natural,  deliciously  and  childishly 
natural. 

He  was  kind-hearted  to  a  point  of  amazing 
but  lovable  weakness.  When  one  of  his  for- 
mer secretaries  appealed  to  him  for  a  horse  and 
carriage,  on  the  pretext  that  rheumatism  had 
made  walking  impossible,  Dickens,  without 
stopping  to  make  an  investigation,  believed — 
or  pretended  to  believe — that  the  man  was 
paralysed,  and  acceded  to  his  request. 

He  used  to  take  part  in  the  games  and  sports 
of  his  children.    He  was  not  content  alone  with 


THE  MAGIC  LANTERN  167 

showing  them  the  magic  lantern,  supplement- 
ing it  with  other  exhibitions  of  still  more  as- 
tonishing magic,  acting  as  stage  manager  for 
their  private  theatricals,  multiplying  travesties, 
comic  imitations,  interludes,  and  antics  of  all 
sorts,  but  he  must  even  learn  to  dance  with 
them.  And  one  night,  literally  in  the  middle  of 
the  night,  the  absurd  whhn  seized  him  of  rising 
from  bed  and  practising  a  polka  step,  so  that 
he  might  convince  his  children  of  his  mastery 
of  the  art. 

Here  is  the  exact  truth.  He  was  a  marvel- 
lous entertainer,  and  the  business  of  entertain- 
ing amused  Dickens  himself  frankly  and  sin- 
cerely, while  he  was  in  full  possession  of  his 
strength.  To  him  the  entire  world  was  a  stage 
setting  out  of  fairyland.  He  called  all  creation 
to  his  aid.  He  gave  consciousness  to  a  tree,  to 
a  stone,  to  any  object  whatever;  the  ardent  in- 
tensity of  his  life  communicated  itself  to  all 
things  outside  of  him.  He  felt  the  need  of 
giving  forth  joy,  generous  enthusiasm,  happi- 
ness.    In  this   sense  Dickens's  optimism,   so 


168  CHARLES  DICKENS 

often  misunderstood  and  belittled,  contains  a 
certain  loftiness  and  sublimity.  The  poet  in 
him  is  eager  for  the  happiness  of  others,  for  all 
others,  just  as  for  himself. 

Yet  Dickens  was  sufficiently  clever  as  a 
writer  to  give  the  impression  when  he  chose  of 
being  sinister.  Like  David  Copperfield's  com- 
rade, Traddles,  he  was  quite  capable  of  tracing 
skeletons  across  his  pages.  But  this  was  only 
one  more  trick  to  amuse  himself  and  his  read- 
ers. There  was  nothing  really  sinister  in  the 
literary  nature  of  Charles  Dickens.  With  him 
we  are  very  far  removed  from  the  romantic 
artists  of  the  decadence.  His  temperament  as 
a  writer  is  sound  and  salutary. 

He  could  also  weep  and  he  knew  how  to 
make  others  weep,  because  he  was  sponta- 
neous and  emotional  and  kind-hearted.  While 
he  could  see  and  reproduce  all  the  ridiculous 
foibles  of  poor  humanity,  the  grimaces  and  the 
mannerisms  of  one  and  all,  at  the  same  time  no 
one  surpassed  him  in  reproducing  the  elements 
of  universal  tragedy.    Dickens  had  no  need  to 


THE  MAGIC  LANTERN  169 

make  phrases,  to  chisel  pohshed  periods,  to 
drape  himself  in  a  fringed  tunic,  to  take  refuge 
in  an  ivory  tower,  or  to  be  the  mouthpiece  of  a 
poHtical  party  when  he  wrote.  He  himself  was 
that  creature  or  that  thing  which  contains  so 
great  a  sum  of  burlesque  and  of  pathos,  and 
which  goes  by  the  name  of  man. 

'T  believe  that  David  Copperfield  is  a  new 
gospel,"  declared  M.  Anatole  France.  This  be- 
lief is  justifiable.  In  the  season  of  1849-50, 
when  Dickens  wrote  David  Copperfield,  which 
is  generally  considered  as  his  masterpiece,  he 
was  in  the  full  plenitude  of  his  creative  genius 
and  of  his  maturity,  uniting  the  treasures  of  se- 
cret and  profound  meditation  with  the  pure 
gold  of  noble  inspiration. 

While  we  must  continue  to  make  special  res- 
ervations when  the  question  arises  w^hether  we 
are  to  consider  this  autobiographic  novel  as  a 
true  autobiography,  it  remains  none  the  less 
true  that  Dickens  put  himself  heart  and  soul 
into  this  joyous  and  sorrowful  book,  so  full  of 
earthly  frailty  and  celestial  radiance. 


170  CHARLES  DICKENS 

There  was  much  truth,  frightful,  unre- 
strained, sinister  or  diabolic  truth,  in  such  char- 
acters as  Pickwick,  Quilp,  Nickleby,  and  count- 
less other  types,  down  to  the  slightest  sil- 
houette in  his  farces  and  his  melodramas.  But 
there  is  quite  as  much  truth  in  the  simpler  por- 
trait of  Copperfield,  Spenlow,  and  Betsy  Trot- 
wood.  And  the  handsome  and  self-assured 
Steerforth,  who  lords  it  everywhere  from  his 
college  days  onward,  down  to  the  time  that  he 
elopes  with  poor  little  Emily,  is  also  authentic. 

"Look,  there  goes  Mr.  Micawber  .  .  . 
No,  it  is  Uncle  Pumblechook."  It  was  after 
this  fashion  that  Dickens  recognised  his  own 
heroes  on  the  street  corner.  We  can  see  them 
still  in  clothes  of  a  different  cut,  and  under  al- 
tered conditions. 

All  this  is  true  of  even  the  slightest  sketch  in 
that  crowded  and  infinitely  varied  David  Cop- 
perfield; every  one  of  them  is  as  sharply  cut 
as  the  profile  on  the  face  of  a  medal.  It  is  im- 
possible to  escape  from  the  hold  that  they  have 
upon  us.    Among  all  the  hosts  of  special  and 


THE  MAGIC  L.\NTERN  171 

general  types  which  make  up  our  hterary  patri- 
mony we  hold  a  special  place  for  our  grateful 
and  fond  memory  of  David  and  Agnes  and 
their  friends — perhaps  we  should  also  add,  even 
for  their  enemies. 

The  fool  in  Nickleby,  who  fell  down  the 
chimney,  after  the  fashion  of  the  sympathetic 
Don  César  de  Bazan,  and  who  made  use  of 
capers  as  projectiles,  is  metamorphosed  in 
David  Copperfield  into  Mr.  Dick.  Mr.  Dick 
flies  his  kites  heavenward,  covered  over  with 
mysterious  elucubrations,  and  he  is  all  the  more 
interesting  and  appealing.  From  this  time  for- 
ward the  element  of  mystery  in  Dickens  is 
tinged  with  a  deeper  and  more  intimate  poetry  ; 
he  retained,  on  his  painter's  palette,  the  same 
dazzling  colours  as  formerly,  but  his  task  of 
selection  has  become  more  masterly.  He  has 
learned  to  add  half-tones  to  his  primary  col- 
ours. And  his  dominion  over  us  is  propor- 
tionally stronger. 

In  Dickens's  life,  just  as  in  his  books,  tragic 
events   intruded   in    grim,    relentless    fashion. 


172  CHARLES  DICKENS 

One  evening  in  April,  1851,  he  attended  a  meet- 
ing held  by  an  organisation  which  interested  it- 
self in  the  fate  of  sick  and  indigent  actors.  He 
had  lost  his  sister  Fanny  only  a  few  months 
previously,  and  his  father  had  just  died;  never- 
theless, he  felt  that  his  presence  at  this  meet- 
ing was  necessary  as  a  matter  of  charity.  He 
delivered  an  eloquent  address  on  a  theme  dear 
to  the  hearts  of  most  novelists  of  the  romantic 
school,  in  which  he  himself  excelled:  namely, 
the  necessity  which  a  comedian  labours  under, 
no  matter  how  heavily  stricken  he  may  be  by 
destiny,  of  hiding  his  anguish,  of  putting  aside 
his  own  intimate  tragedy,  in  order  to  give  a 
conscientious  and  brilliant  rendering  of  his 
comic  rôle. 

Dickens  presided  at  the  meeting.  In  the 
midst  of  it  word  was  brought  to  his  friend 
Forster  that  Dora  Annie,  the  youngest  of  Dick- 
ens^s  daughters,  whom  her  father  had  only  just 
left  happily  smiling  in  her  crib,  had  suddenly 
died  without  warning.     Forster  undertook  to 


THE  MAGIC  LANTERN  173 

break  the  news  to  Dickens  after  the  latter  con- 
cluded his  address. 

This  was  a  period  of  grief  and  mourning  for 
the  novelist.  Several  of  his  best  friends  had 
passed  away.  After  spending  some  time  at  the 
sea-side,  he  found  himself  obliged  to  change  his 
city  residence.  He  removed  to  a  spacious 
dwelling,  Tavistock  House,  in  which  he  con- 
tinued to  live  until  1860.  There  was  much  need 
that  it  shor.ld  be  spacious.  The  novelist  took 
possession  in  1851,  not  without  some  misgivings 
— for  we  know  whence  we  come,  but  we  never 
know  whither  we  are  going — and  in  1852  his 
youngest  son,  Edward  Bulwer  Lytton,  was 
born. 

Meanwhile  he  had  resumed,  with  a  sort  of 
feverish  restlessness,  the  series  of  his  wander- 
ings. It  would  seem  as  though  his  art  required 
that  he  should  seek  isolation,  and  in  a  sort  of 
half  retirement  search  the  unknown  pages  of 
his  own  intimate  story,  the  story  which  was 
never  to  be  published,  and  which  was  never- 
theless the  source-book  of  all  his  others. 


174  CHARLES  DICKENS 

He  passed  several  summers  at  Boulogne,  ap- 
preciating the  kindly  attentions  of  his  landlord, 
Beaucourt,  and  readily  adapted  himself  to  the 
agreeable  features  of  French  life.  A  little  later 
he  revisited  Switzerland  and  Italy,  where  he 
seems  to  have  recovered  his  old  energy;  then 
back  again  to  France  and  to  Paris,  where  it  was 
his  ambition  to  achieve  popularity. 

But  Paris  had  changed.  It  was  no  longer  the 
City  of  the  Citizen-King.  Baron  Haussmann 
already  had  his  project  in  readiness;  and  the 
sumptuous  and  pleasant  life  of  the  Empire,  in 
its  most  flourishing  years,  was  everywhere  in 
evidence.  Dickens  was  enchanted.  He  was 
flattered  by  the  popularity  which  greeted  him. 
People  sought  to  meet  him,  and  with  no  little 
self-complacency  he  kept  a  collection  of  the  vis- 
iting cards  he  received,  the  brief  inscriptions  on 
which  testified  to  the  esteem  in  which  he  was 
held.  To  cite  only  one  from  among  many  hun- 
dreds: "Jaubert,  greetings  to  the  illustrious 
English  novelist,  Charles  de  Kean.'^ 

He  was  accompanied  by  Wilkie  Collins,  and 


THE  MAGIC  LANTERN  175 

the  actor  Régnier  acted  as  his  guide.  The  two 
novelists  stayed  successively  at  the  Hôtel 
Meurice  in  the  Rue  Balzac  and  the  Champs- 
Elysées. 

How  many  events  occurred  within  that  brief 
time,  and  how  admirably  he  succeeded  in  as- 
similating and  appreciating  their  delicate  or 
painful  interest  ! 

On  the  opposite  side  of  the  Champs-Elysées 
the  horrible  discovery  was  made  that  the 
Duchess  of  Caumont-Laforce  had  been  assassi- 
nated. Her  hotel  w^as  besieged  by  a  host  of 
curious  idlers,  crowding,  pushing,  exclaiming, 
for  one  spends  one's  time  as  best  one  can. 

The  Commissary  of  Police  was  there,  con- 
ducting his  inquest.  Presently  a  gentleman 
with  an  air  of  unusual  distinction  approached 
him  and  asked  : 

"Is  it  true  that  the  Duchess  is  dead?" 

''Alas,  yes,  Monsieur  the  Duke." 

''Well,  so  much  the  better,"  rejoins  Monsieur 
the  Duke,  as  he  goes  on  his  way.    This  inci- 


176  CHARLES  DICKENS 

dent  has  an  exaggerated  flavour  of  the 
eighteenth  century! 

Here  are  other  impressions  of  various  sorts. 
A  thief  ^'nabbed"  Dickens's  watch,  which  was 
a  present  from  the  queen.  But  it  happened 
that  this  thief  was  a  pickpocket  of  real  breed- 
ing, and  he  prided  himself  upon  being  an  Eng- 
lish citizen.  As  soon  as  he  learned  that  he  was 
in  possession  of  a  watch  belonging  to  the  au- 
thor of  the  adventures  of  Pickwick  and  Oliver 
Twist,  he  sent  it  back,  with  a  graceful  note, 
assuring  Charles  Dickens  of  his  humble  ad- 
miration. Dickens,  like  Grimaldi,  was  entitled 
to  the  gratuitous  homage  of  the  whole  world, 
even  of  thieves! 

This  was  not  all.  The  Enghsh  novelist, 
peaceful  and  aggressive  by  turns,  quarrelled 
with  his  concierge,  brought  a  law  suit  against 
his  landlord,  and  won  his  case,  as  by  good 
rights  he  should. 

He  renewed  his  relations  with  French  men 
of  letters,  met  Lamartine  once  again,  at  the 
home  of  Amédée  Pichot,  and  traced  a  masterly 


THE  MAGIC  LANTERN  177 

portrait  of  the  poet,  which  forms  a  worthy  com- 
panion piece  to  that  of  Hugo,  written  at  the 
time  of  his  first  visit  to  Paris. 

"He  (Lamartine)  continues  to  be  precisely  as 
we  formerly  knew  him,  both  in  appearance  and 
manner;  highly  prepossessing,  with  a  sort  of 
calm  passion  about  him,  very  taking  indeed. 
We  talked  of  Defoe  and  Richardson,  and  of 
that  wonderful  genius  for  the  minutest  details 
in  a  narrative,  which  has  given  them  so  much 
fame  in  France.  I  found  him  frank  and  unaf- 
fected, and  full  of  curious  knowledge  of  the 
French  common  people.  He  informed  the  com- 
pany at  dinner  that  he  had  rarely  met  a  for- 
eigner who  spoke  French  so  easily  as  your  in- 
imitable correspondent,  whereat  your  corre- 
spondent blushed  modestly,  and  almost  imme- 
diately afterwards  so  nearly  choked  himself 
with  the  bone  of  a  fowl  (which  is  still  in  his 
throat)  that  he  sat  in  torture  for  ten  minutes, 
with  a  strong  apprehension  that  he  was  going 
to  make  the  good  Pichot  famous  by  dying  like 
the  little  Hunchback  at  his  table.'^ 


178  CHARLES  DICKENS 

Then  follows  an  amusing  picture  of  a  fash- 
ionable dramatist  a  prey  to  all  the  apprehen- 
sions of  a  first  performance  : 

"Scribe  and  his  wife  were  of  the  party,  but 
had  to  go  away  at  the  ice-time  because  it  was 
the  first  representation  at  the  Opéra  Comique 
of  a  new  opera  by  Auber  and  himself,  of  which 
very  great  expectations  had  been  formed.  It 
was  very  curious  to  see  him — the  author  of 
four  hundred  pieces — getting  nervous  as  the 
time  approached,  and  pulling  out  his  watch 
every  minute.  At  last  he  dashed  out  as  if  he 
were  going  into  what  a  friend  of  mine  calls  a 
plunge  bath.  Whereat  she  rose  and  followed. 
She  is  the  most  extraordinary  woman  I  ever 
beheld;  for  her  eldest  son  must  be  thirty,  and 
she  has  the  figure  of  five-and-twenty,  and  is 
strikingly  handsome.  So  graceful,  too,  that  her 
manner  of  rising,  curtseying,  laughing,  and  go- 
ing out  after  him  was  pleasanter  than  the  pleas- 
antest  thing  I  have  ever  seen  done  on  the 
stage." 

Dickens  continued  to  lead  the  life  of  Paris. 


THE  MAGIC  LANTERN  179 

He  admired  Scribe's  horses;  he  also  admired 
the  quantity  and  quality  of  the  cigars  of  Emile 
de  Girardin,  the  insolent  Lucullus  who  enter- 
tained him  at  a  lavish  banquet,  through  the 
whole  of  which  he  continued  to  repeat  cease- 
lessly, "Ce  petit  dîner-ci  n'est  que  pour  faire  la 
connaissance  de  AI.  Dickens;  il  ne  compte  pas; 
ce  n*est  rien"  (This  little  dinner  is  given  only 
for  the  purpose  of  introducing  Mr.  Dickens  ;  in 
itself  it  is  nothing,  nothing  at  all).  A  second 
banquet  followed  close  upon  the  first;  but  this 
time  Dickens  stops  short  in  his  account  and 
saves  himself  the  trouble  of  describing  it;  the 
humourist  at  this  point  gives  place  to  the  mor- 
alist: "All  this  ostentatious  opulence  saddens 
me,  it  saddens  me  in  spite  of  myself.  .  .  . 
I  think  of  the  source  of  all  this  wealth  so  rap- 
idly acquired,  and  I  seem  to  see,  as  in  a  dream, 
the  despairing  faces  of  all  those  poor  simple 
wretches  from  whom  their  money  was  taken,  in 
accordance  with  all  the  forms  prescribed  by 
law.'^ 

On  another  occasion,  having  made  the  ac- 


180  CHARLES  DICKENS 

quaintance  of  Mme.  Dudevant,  better  known 
by  her  pseudonym  of  George  Sand,  Dickens 
comments  upon  her  as  follows  : 

"Just  the  kind  of  woman  whom  you  might 
suppose  to  be  the  Queen's  monthly  nurse. 
Chubby,  matronly,  swarthy,  black-eyed.  Noth- 
ing of  the  blue-stocking  about  her,  except  a 
little  final  way  of  settling  all  your  opinions  with 
hers,  which  I  take  to  have  been  acquired  in  the 
country  where  she  lives,  and  in  the  domination 
of  a  small  circle.  A  singularly  ordinary  woman 
in  appearance  and  manner." 

Undoubtedly  this  description  comes  far 
closer  to  the  good  lady  of  Nohant  and  author 
of  La  Mare  au  Diable  than  to  the  author  of 
Mauprat  and  mistress  of  Alfred  de  Musset.  In 
like  manner,  when  his  imperial,  which  Ary 
Scheffer  pictured  for  us  during  the  second  so- 
journ in  Paris,  became  transformed  into  a  two- 
pointed  beard,  Charles  Dickens,  the  one-time 
dandy,  came  to  bear  no  distant  resemblance, 
save  for  lack  of  uniform,  to  some  worthy  cap- 


THE  MAGIC  LANTERN  181 

tain  of  the  merchant  marine.    What  sad  fall- 
ings off  take  place  here  below! 

We  must  not  put  too  much  faith  in  Dickens^s 
artistic  judgments.  He  applauded  Frédéric 
Lemaître  at  the  Ambigu,  in  La  Vie  d'un  Joueur 
(A  Gambler's  Life),  and  proclaimed  him  the 
greatest  actor  of  the  century;  while  he  fell 
asleep  over  Dumas's  Oreste  and  stigmatised  the 
Comédie  Française  as  a  gloomy  place  (perhaps 
it  was  in  his  day,  but  it  is  not  now).  At  the 
same  time  he  went  into  ecstasies  over  a  piece 
called  Les  Cheveux  de  Ma  Femme.  All,  or 
practically  all,  that  Dickens  wrote  survives, 
while  the  farce  which  delighted  him  died  a  well- 
deserved  death.  People  of  one  race  do  not  al- 
ways admire  what  is  best  in  another  race. 

In  Paris,  as  elsewhere,  Dickens  retained  his 
passionate  love  for  the  passing  show  of  the 
streets.  The  New  Year's  booths,  along  the  bou- 
levards, amused  him  greatty.  Paris  has  kept 
up  this  picturesque  exhibition,  which  is  so  well 
in  Keeping  with  the  life  of  the  city  and  the  in-^ 
terests  of  the  small  tradesmen.    He  also  mar- 


182  CHARLES  DICKENS 

veiled  at  the  noise  and  turmoil  of  the  Bourse, 
which  long  custom  has  taught  Frenchmen  to 
look  upon  without  surprise. 

Dickens  was  well  received  in  Paris.  The 
snobbish  element  would  gladly  have  lionised 
him,  as  they  would  any  other  distinguished 
stranger.  But  he  was  wise  enough  to  avoid  all 
such  importunities. 

He  was  sincerely  pleased  with  the  favours 
shown  him,  and  all  the  more  so  because  the 
general  public  had  begun  to  be  familiar  with 
his  name.  Martin  Chuzzlewit  was  then  running 
serially  in  the  Moniteur. 

After  his  return  home  Dickens  wrote  a 
preface  for  the  French  version  of  Martin  Chuz- 
zlewit, dated  at  Tavistock  House  January  17th, 
1857.  It  was  in  the  form  of  an  ''Address"  by 
the  English  author  to  the  French  public,  and  is 
to  be  found  in  both  languages  in  the  first  edi- 
tion of  the  Vie  et  Aventures  de  Martin  Chuz- 
zlewit, published  in  1858  by  Hachette  et  Cie, 
No.  14  Rue  Pierre-Sarrazin. 

In  it  the  author  stated  that  he  had  for  a  long 


iSï^'^^W' 


^mf. 


^•m-^ 

m^^- 


i;UST   OF   DICKENS 

This  work  by  the  sculptor  Taft,  executed  in  1870,  shows  us  the  great 

and  prolific  novelist  at  fifty-eight  years  of  age,  a  few  months  before 

his  death. 


THE  MAGIC  LANTERN  183 

time  past  been  hoping  to  see  the  publication 
of  a  complete  and  uniform  translation  of  his 
works. 

"The  present  publication,"  he  went  on  to  say, 
"was  proposed  to  me  by  Messrs.  Hachette  & 
Company,  and  by  M.  Charles  Lahure,  on  terms 
which  do  honour  to  their  high-minded,  liberal 
and  generous  character." 

In  France,  as  well  as  in  England,  Germany 
and  America,  Dickens  had  by  no  means  been 
accustomed  to  such  scrupulous  consideration 
from  publishers  in  search  of  success — and 
profits. 

He  added,  in  remembrance  of  the  hospitality 
he  had  received  : 

"I  am  proud  to  be  presented  in  this  form  to 
the  great  French  people,  whom  I  love  and  hon- 
our sincerely;  this  people,  whose  judgment  and 
approval  ought  to  be  a  goal  for  the  ambition  of 
all  who  cultivate  the  art  of  letters  ;  this  people, 
who  have  done  so  much  for  literature,  and  to 
whom  literature  owes  such  a  glorious  name 
throughout  the  world." 


184  CHARLES  DICKENS 

Bleak  House  had  appeared,  and  it  brought 
additional  fame  and  fortune. 

Dickens  could  not  rise  to  a  greater  height 
than  David  Copperfield,  but  by  combining  sim- 
ilar methods  with  a  more  direct  plot  and  a  more 
unsparing  realism,  and  with  greater  technical 
skill,  he  did  succeed  in  expressing  his  hatred  of 
the  injustice  perpetuated,  under  diverse  forms, 
consciously  or  otherwise,  by  the  Skimpoles  and 
Sir  Leicester  Dedlocks  of  real  life.  In  the  cen- 
tre of  the  picture  we  have  the  Court  of  Chan- 
cery, a  dreadful  place.  Dickens  is  always  suffi- 
ciently exalted  to  give  the  impression  of  writ- 
ing in  a  dream  or  a  nightmare.  In  Bleak  House 
the  nightmare  claims  its  full  rights.  Ada,  Rich- 
ard, and  Esther  pass  through  it  shrouded  in 
heavy  shadow.  The  case  of  Jarndyce  and  Jarn- 
dyce  pursues  its  complicated  course  in  ap- 
parently eternal  darkness,  amid  the  mournful 
chorus  of  birds  of  prey.  The  little  old  lady  is 
forever  awaiting  a  judgment,  the  Judgment. 
And  she  has  for  her  landlord  Krook,  the  rag 
dealer,  whose  shop  adjoins  the  Inns  of  Court, 


THE  MAGIC  LANTERN  185 

and  who  explains  as  follows  his  nickname  of 
Lord  Chancellor: 

"You  see  I  have  so  many  things  here,  of  so 
many  kinds,  and  all,  as  the  neighbours  think, 
wasting  away  and  going  to  rack  and  ruin,  that 
that's  why  they  have  given  me  and  my  place  a 
christening.  And  I  have  so  many  old  parch- 
ments and  papers  in  my  stock.  And  I  have  a 
liking  for  rust  and  must  and  cobwebs.  And 
all's  fish  that  comes  to  my  net.  And  I  can't 
bear  to  part  with  anything  I  once  lay  hold  of, 
or  to  alter  anything,  or  to  have  any  sweeping, 
nor  scouring,  nor  cleaning,  nor  repairing  going 
on  about  me.  That's  the  way  I've  got  the  ill 
name  of  Chancery. 

Krook  is  not  only  proprietor  of  a  "Rag  and 
Bottle  Warehouse,"  but  also  proclaims  himself 
a  "Dealer  in  Marine  Stores,"  while  further 
placards  announce  "Bones  Bought,"  "Kitchen 
Stuff  Bought,"  "Old  Iron  Bought"  and  "La- 
dies' and  Gentlemen's  Wardrobes  Bought." 
The  whole  place  is  littered  over  with  piles  of 
dirty  bottles:    "blacking  bottles,  medicine  bot- 


186  CHARLES  DICKENS 

tleS;  ginger-beer  and  soda-water  bottles,  pickle 
bottles,  wine  bottles,  ink  bottles";  and  it  is 
these  latter  which  serve  as  a  reminder  that 
"the  shop  had,  in  several  little  particulars,  the 
air  of  being  in  a  legal  neighbourhood,  and  of 
being,  as  it  were,  a  dirty  hanger-on  and  dis- 
owned relation  of  the  law/' 

We  need  not  waste  time  over  the  narrative 
of  Esther,  and  we  care  little  for  the  fact  that  the 
lengthy  story  is  based  upon  the  ancient  love 
affairs  of  Mr.  Nemo  and  Lady  Dedlock.  But 
the  effects  which  the  novelist  extracts  from  it 
are  unique  and  marvellous,  because  he  no 
longer  makes  use  of  blind  chance,  but  substi- 
tutes for  it  an  indescribably  minute  logic,  com- 
bined, furthermore,  with  a  vein  of  lively  sar- 
casm, indignant  eloquence,  and  charity  accom- 
panied by  a  judicial  and  avengeful  retribution. 

There  is  no  further  room  for  wonder  at  Dick- 
ens's plots  after  we  have  read  Bleak  House. 
We  need  not  seek  to  decide  whether  the  tone 
of  it  is  too  exaggerated,  as  Lord  Macaulay 
thought,    or  whether   Harold   Skinpole   bears 


THE  MAGIC  LANTERN  187 

more  or  less  of  a  resemblance  to  Leigh  Hunt. 
But  we  must  continually  approve  of  what  that 
abstract  and  intellectual  critic,  Taine,  wrote  in 
regard  to  Dickens: 

'There  is  no  other  writer  who  knows  so  well 
how  to  touch  and  to  soften  ;  he  makes  us  weep  ; 
that  is  literally  true  ;  before  reading  him  we  did 
not  know  that  we  had  so  much  pity  in  our 
hearts.  .  .  .  The  tears  which  he  sheds  are 
real  tears,  and  compassion  is  their  only  source." 

Let  us  take  an  example  from  Bleak  House. 

Jo,  poor  Jo,  filthy  and  diseased,  an  outcast  of 
humanity,  feels  that  he  is  being  tracked  and 
hunted  down.  He  takes  flight,  for  he  has  lost 
the  only  being  in  the  world  who  felt  pity  for 
him,  so  here  we  find  him  like  a  sick  dog,  wan- 
dering in  a  foul  and  infamous  back  alley  known 
as  Tom-AU-Alone's. 

Dickens  understood  better  than  any  other  the 
following  truth:  environments  exist  through 
their  relation  to  ourselves,  to  our  state  of  mind  ; 
even  considered  abstractly,  they  are  our  own 
creation. 


188  CHARLES  DICKENS 

Mr.  Allan  Woodcourt,  a  charitable  physi- 
cian, has  just  been  ministering  to  the  wife  of  a 
brick-layer.  The  wretched  quarter  is  still 
asleep,  and  nothing  is  stirring. 

''Yes,  something  is!  As  he  retraces  his  way 
to  the  point  from  which  he  descried  the  woman 
at  a  distance  sitting  on  the  step,  he  sees  a 
ragged  figure  coming  very  cautiously  along, 
crouching  close  to  the  soiled  walls — which  the 
wretchedest  figure  might  as  well  avoid— and 
furtively  thrusting  a  hand  before  it.  It  is  the 
figure  of  a  youth,  whose  face  is  hollow,  and 
whose  eyes  have  an  emaciated  glare.  He  is  so 
intent  on  getting  along  unseen  that  even  the 
apparition  of  a  stranger  in  whole  garments  does 
not  tempt  him  to  look  back.  He  shades  his 
face  with  his  ragged  elbow  as  he  passes  on  the 
other  side  of  the  way,  and  goes  shrinking  and 
creeping  on,  with  his  anxious  hand  before  him, 
and  his  shapeless  clothes  hanging  in  shreds. 
Clothes  made  for  what  purpose,  or  of  what  ma- 
terial, it  would  be  impossible  to  say.  They 
look,  in  colour,  and  in  substance,  like  a  bundle 


THE  MAGIC  LANTERN  189 

of  lank  leaves  of  swampy  growth  that  rotted 
long  ago. 

''Stop  him!" 

The  wretched  Jo  takes  to  flight,  but  he  is 
brought  to  bay  in  a  blind  alley  and  tumbles 
down  against  a  hoarding  of  decaying  timber. 
Mr.  Woodcourt  recognises  him  as  the  youth  he 
had  seen  at  the  coroner's  inquest.  Jo  laments 
and  protests.  What  is  to  become  of  such  an 
unfortunate  as  himself?  He  has  been  driven 
away  from  everywhere  by  one  person  after  an- 
other. He  is  nothing  but  skin  and  bones.  He 
has  lost  the  one  person  who  would  condescend 
to  talk  with  him  and  who  was  good  to  him.  He 
would  gladly  have  died  in  his  stead.  He  does 
not  know  why  he  has  not  drowned  himself  in 
the  river.  No,  he  does  not  know  why.  He  does 
not  know  anything. 

Mr.  Woodcourt  takes  pity  on  the  lad.  Jo  is 
lamentable,  but  he  is  sincere. 

The  doctor  leads  the  way.  Jo  follows, 
cringes,  looks  behind  him  anxiously.  He  moves 
painfully,  halting  and  shuffling.     "It  surely  is 


190  CHARLES  DICKENS 

a  strange  fact/'  Allan  tells  himself,  ''that  in  the 
heart  of  a  civilised  world  this  creature  in  hu- 
man form  should  be  more  difficult  to  dispose  of 
than  an  unowned  dog."  But  it  is  none  the  less 
a  fact  because  of  its  strangeness,  and  the  doctor 
does  not  see  what  remedy  he  can  offer. 

He  takes  Jo  into  a  breakfast  stall,  and  or- 
ders a  cup  of  coffee  for  him.  Jo  raises  the  cup, 
then  sets  it  back  upon  the  table  again.  He 
casts  glances  around  him  furtively,  like  a 
frightened  animal.  He  is  so  ill  and  so  miser- 
able that  even  hunger  has  abandoned  him. 

"I  thought  I  was  a'most  a-starving,  sir,"  he 
says,  "but  I  don't  know  nothink — not  even  that. 
I  don't  care  for  eating  wittles,  nor  yet  for  drink- 
ing on  'em."  And  Jo  stands  shivering,  and 
looking  at  the  breakfast  wonderingly.  The  doc- 
tor satisfies  himself  that  Jo  is  ill,  very  ill  in- 
deed. Thanks  to  his  intervention,  a  former 
trooper,  who  keeps  a  shooting  gallery,  consents 
to  offer  Jo  an  asylum.  Jo  accepts  passively, 
dazedly.  He  feels  that  he  inspires  in  others  an 
involuntary  aversion.    What  has  he  in  common 


THE  MAGIC  LANTERN  191 

with  the  rest  of  the  world?  He  is  neither  man 
nor  beast;  how  should  he  be  classified?  There 
is  no  category  for  him  in  the  whole  wide 
creation. 

And  here  Dickens,  with  the  righteous  anger 
of  his  big-hearted  genius,  lays  his  finger  on  the 
festering  sores  of  poor  Jo's  body,  as  well  as  on 
the  festering  sores  of  the  social  life  of  the  day. 
Is  it  possible  that  humanity,  is  it  possible  that 
England  could  countenance  such  shameful  con- 
ditions? Dickens  intervenes.  There  is  no  need 
of  invoking  solemn  and  sacred  precepts.  We 
have  only  to  look  upon  Jo,  in  order  to  cry  aloud 
with  horror  and  aversion  ;  we  have  only  to  hide 
in  part  our  own  immense  distress,  which  ema- 
nates from  that  of  Jo,  in  order  to  fill  to  over- 
flowing the  phials  of  our  wrath,  for  the  benefit 
of  the  culpable  and  the  indifferent. 

Let  us  listen  again  to  Charles  Dickens.  Is 
the  following  a  sneer,  or  is  it  not  rather  a  sob? 

"Joe  is  brought  in.  He  is  not  one  of  Mrs. 
Pardiggle's  Tockahoopo  Indians;  he  is  not  one 
of  Mrs.  Jellyby's  lambs;  being  wholly  uncon- 


192  CHARLES  DICKENS 

nected  with  Borrioboola-Cha;  he  is  not  soft- 
ened by  distance  and  un  familiarity  ;  he  is  not  a 
genuine  foreign-grown  savage;  he  is  the  ordi- 
nary home-made  article.  Dirty,  ugly,  disa- 
greeable to  all  the  senses,  in  body  a  common 
creature  of  the  common  streets,  only  in  soul  a 
heathen.  Homely  filth  begrimes  him,  homely 
parasites  devour  him,  homely  sores  are  in  him, 
homely  rags  are  on  him;  native  ignorance,  the 
growth  of  English  soil  and  climate,  sinks  his  im- 
mortal nature  lower  than  the  beasts  that  perish. 
Stand  forth,  Jo,  in  uncompromising  colours! 
From  the  sole  of  thy  foot  to  the  crown  of  thy 
head  there  is  nothing  interesting  about  thee." 
We  are  far  removed,  with  such  apostrophes, 
from  the  anachronistic  and  vain  theory  of  art 
for  art's  sake.  Yet  it  is  art  which  illumines  this 
daring,  defiant,  detailed  realism  with  a  dazzling 
gleam  like  that  of  the  most  powerful  Christian 
orators — like  that  of  the  most  vigorous  French 
painters  of  modern  social  life,  from  Zola  and 
Maupassant  to  Lucien  Descaves,  J.-H.  Rosny 
and  Paul  Brulat. 


THE  MAGIC  LANTERN  193 

And  here  it  is  no  longer  a  question  of  anar- 
chy or  socialism.  It  is  rather  one  of  rehgion, 
or,  better  yet,  something  like  a  great  wave  of 
human  and  divine  sympathy  which,  through  all 
the  fluctuations  of  human  society,  maintains  its 
universal  and  eteroial  value. 

Where  may  we  discover  such  intense  bitter- 
ness, combined  with  such  tender  sympathy, 
apart  from  Dickens?  We  ourselves  thrill  in 
response  to  his  anger  and  his  sadness.  His  pic- 
turesque and  satiric  sorrow  becomes  nothing 
but  sorrow,  pure  and  simple,  sheer  mourning 
with  no  pleasure  in  recording  it,  and  of  all  his 
hatred  there  remains  nothing  but  sheer  love! 

In  order  to  realise  what  infinite  variety  lies 
within  the  range  of  this  genius,  so  responsive, 
so  direct,  so  destitute  of  useless  subtlety,  we 
have  only  to  compare  the  death  of  poor  Jo  with 
that  of  little  Paul  Dombey  and  of  little  Nell,  at 
the  same  time  keeping  in  mind  the  fact  that  he 
is  the  creator  of  a  whole  world  of  human  beings. 
It  extends  from  a  Pickwick,  a  Weller,  a  Toots,  a 
Crummies,  to  a  Guppy  and  a  Simmery.    How 


194  CHARLES  DICKENS 

many  other  writers  would  have  exhausted 
themselves  by  any  single  one  of  these  crea- 
tions ! 

Let  us  stoop  with  Dickens  and  with  the  sym- 
pathetic Mr.  Woodcourt  over  the  final  suffer- 
ings of  poor  Jo.  Like  all  popular  writers,  Dick- 
ens makes  his  characters  seem  alive  by  making 
them  talk  a  great  deal.  But  in  his  case  it  is  be- 
cause he  himself  has  heard  them  talk.  There 
are  emotion,  terror,  despair  in  each  separate 
word.  The  infinite  symbolism  that  lies  behind 
the  words  vastly  magnifies  their  import  : 

"  'Well,  Jo!  What  is  the  matter?  Don't  be 
frightened.' 

"  'I  thought,'  says  Jo,  who  has  started,  and 
is  looking  round;  'I  thought  I  wos  in  Tom- 
all-Alone's  ag'in.  Ain't  there  nobody  here  but 
you,  Mr.  Woodcot?' 

"  'Nobody.' 

"  'And  I  ain't  took  back  to  Tom-all- Alone's. 
Am  I,  sh"?' 

"  'No.'  Jo  closes  his  eyes,  muttering,  'I'm 
wery  thankful.' 


THE  MAGIC  LANTERN  195 

"After  watching  him  closely  a  little  while  Al- 
lan puts  his  mouth  very  near  his  ear,  and  says 
to  him  in  a  low,  distinct  voice  : 

"  'Jo!  Did  you  ever  know  a  prayer?^ 
"  'Never  knowed  nothink,  sir.' 
"  'Not  so  much  as  one  short  prayer?' 
"'No,  sir.  Nothink  at  all.  Mr.  Chadband  he 
wos  a-prayin'  wunst  at  Mr.  Snagsby's,  and  I 
heerd  him,  but  he  sounded  as  if  he  wos 
a-speakin'  to  hisself,  and  not  to  me.  He  prayed 
a  lot,  but  /  couldn't  make  out  nothink  on  it. 
Different  times  there  wos  other  genTmen  come 
down  Tom-all-Alone's  a-prayin',  but  they 
mostly  all  said  as  the  t'other  wuns  prayed 
wrong  and  all  mostly  sounded  to  be  a-talkin'  to 
theirselves,  or  a-passin'  blame  on  the  t'others, 
and  not  a-talkin'  to  us.  We  never  know'd 
nothink.  /  never  know'd  what  it  wos  all 
about.'  " 

Each  naïve  reflection,  far  from  sounding 
comic,  assumes  incredible  proportions,  as  mur- 
mured by  those  dying  lips.  What  follows  is 
pitiable,  but  in  this  drama  there  is  a  sort  of 


196  CHARLES  DICKENS 

apotheosis  immediately  preceding  the  lofty  and 
heart-rending  invocation  at  the  end.  Equally 
with  the  priest  and  the  poet,  the  writer  who 
has  shed  the  light  of  his  torch  into  the  gloomy 
dungeons  of  law  and  politics  and  religion, 
where  innocent  childhood  and  wretched  poverty 
agonise,  has  the  right  to  address  himself  to  the 
powerful  as  well  as  the  humble,  to  proclaim  the 
truth  to  them,  to  give  utterance  to  the  cry  of 
reason  and  the  cry  of  the  heart. 

''It  takes  him  a  long  time  to  say  this;  and 
few  but  an  experienced  and  attentive  listener 
could  hear  or,  hearing,  understand  him.  After 
a  short  relapse  into  sleep  or  stupor,  he  makes, 
of  a  sudden,  a  strong  effort  to  get  out  of  bed. 

"'Stay,  Jo!    What  now?' 

"  'It's  time  for  me  to  go  to  that  three  berry- 
ing-ground,  sir,'  he  returns,  with  a  wild  look. 

"  'Lie  down,  and  tell  me.  What  burying- 
ground,  Jo?' 

"  'Where  they  laid  him  as  wos  wery  good  to 
me,  werry  good  to  me  indeed,  he  wos.  It's 
time  fur  me  to  go  down  to  that  there  ber- 


THE  MAGIC  L.\NTERN  197 

ryin'  ground,  sir,  and  ask  to  be  put  along  with 
him.  I  wants  to  go  there  and  be  berried.  He 
used  fur  to  say  to  me,  *I  am  as  poor  as  you  to- 
day, Jo,^  he  ses.  I  wants  to  tell  him  that  I  am 
as  poor  as  him  now,  and  have  come  there  to  be 
laid  along  with  him.' 

''  'By-and-bye,  Jo.    By-and-bye.' 

"  'Ah  !  P'r'aps  they  wouldn't  do  it  if  I  wos 
to  go  myself.  But  will  you  promise  to  have  me 
took  there,  sir,  and  laid  along  with  him?' 

'^  'I  will,  indeed.' 

"  Thank'ee,  sir.  Thank'ee,  sir.  They'll  have 
to  get  the  key  of  the  gate  afore  they  can  take 
me  in,  for  it's  alius  locked.  And  there's  a  step 
there  as  I  used  fur  to  clean  with  my  broom. 
It's  turned  very  dark,  sir.  Is  there  any  light 
a-comin'?' 

"  'It  is  coming  fast,  Jo.' 

"Fast.  The  cart  is  shaken  all  to  pieces,  and 
the  rugged  road  is  very  near  its  end. 

''  'Jo,  my  poor  fellow!' 

"  1   hear   you,    sir,    in    the    dark,   but   I'm 


198  CHARLES  DICKENS 

a-gropin' — a-gropin' — let  me  catch  hold  of  your 
hand; 

"  'Jo,  can  you  say  what  I  say?' 

"  'I'll  say  anything  as  you  say,  sir,  fur  I 
knows  it's  good.' 

''  'OUR  FATHER.' 

"'Our  Father! — yes,  that's  wery  good,  sir.' 

"  'WHICH  ART  IN  HEAVEN.'     • 

"  'Art  in  Heaven — is  the  light  a-comin',  sir?' 

"'It  is  close  at  hand.  HALLOWED  BE 
THY  NAME!' 

"  'Hallowed  be— thy ' 

"The  light  is  come  upon  the  dark,  benighted 
way.    Dead!" 

Dead,  your  Majesty.  Dead,  my  lords  and 
gentlemen.  Dead,  Right  Reverends  and 
Wrong  Reverends  of  every  order.  Dead,  men 
and  women,  born  with  heavenly  compassion  in 
your  hearts.  And  dying  thus  around  us  every 
day. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE   ART  OF  GOVERNMENT,  ACCORDING  TO  DICK- 
ENS  TWENTY     YEARS     AFTER A     DELICATE 

SUBJECT — THE  CHASE  AFTER  DOLLARS — 
READINGS  FROM  PICKWICK,  DOMBEY  AND 
SON,  ETC. 

DICKENS  was  started  upon  a  new  path,  a 
most  clear-cut  and  vehement  attack 
upon  political  institutions  and  principles. 
Ought  we  to  see,  in  this  new  departure,  as  has 
been  claimed,  a  dangerous  tendency  towards 
socialism? 

Nothing  is  more  absurd  than  to  attempt  to 
codify  the  works  and  the  personality  of  this 
magician.  But  undoubtedly  he  had  felt  the  in- 
fluence of  the  aggressive  theories  of  his  friend 
Carlyle.  Besides,  he  had  acquired  a  higher 
consciousness  of  his  authority  and  his  respon- 
sibility. 

His  powers  of  observing  and  interpreting  re- 

199 


200  CHARLES  DICKENS 

mained  as  keen  as  ever,  but  were  distin- 
guished in  these  later  years  by  attacks  of  nerv- 
ousness, crises  of  melancholy  and  extreme  bit- 
terness. 

The  transition  from  Bleak  House  to  Hard 
Times,  which  appeared  in  1855,  is  quite  natu- 
ral. Bounderby  and  Gradgrind  are  remembered 
as  imposing  creations.  But  the  novelist  no 
longer  gave  himself  up  to  the  pleasure  of  paint- 
ing vice  as  he  painted  virtue,  under  its  more 
picturesque  aspects,  and  he  no  longer  so  wil- 
lingly coloured  ugliness  and  evil  with  joyous 
tints.  There  is  less  of  the  unforeseen  and  of 
affectionate  hilarity.  He  intervenes  more 
gravely,  although  not  without  acrimony,  to 
demonstrate  and  to  judge. 

The  lesson  of  Thomas  Gradgrind,  in  the  bare, 
monotonous  and  sepulchral  school  room,  is 
done  with  a  sobriety  in  which  all  the  details 
converge  towards  the  final  effect  ;  nowhere  does 
the  author  search  to  distract  or  rest  our  atten- 
tion by  any  unforeseen  episode  or  any  ironical 
portrait  as  a  contrast  to  the  teacher.     Every 


THE  ART  OF  GOVERNMENT     201 

touch  bears  upon  the  new  conception,  the  posi- 
tive conception:  "Facts!  Facts!  Facts!"  Im- 
agination must  be  killed. 

But  look  at  little  Sissy  Jupe!  What  an  ex- 
traordinary idea  to  have  transformed  her  real 
name  of  Cecilia  in  this  manner!  And  why 
should  it  ever  have  occurred  to  her  to  wish  for 
a  flowered  carpet?  What  a  triumph  for  the 
gentleman  who  is  cross-examining  her  when  she 
allows  the  admission  to  escape  her  that  in  look- 
ing at  the  flowers  she  would  be  able  to  im- 
agine   ... 

To  imagine!  That  is  precisely  what  must  not 
be  allowed.  In  all  matters  you  must  let  your- 
self be  guided  and  governed  by  facts!  And 
Dickens,  mildly  sardonic,  says  in  conclusion: 

'^Say,  good  M'Choakumchild.  When,  from 
thy  boiling  store,  thou  shalt  fill  each  jar  brim- 
ful by  and  by,  dost  thou  think  that  thou  wilt 
always  kill  outright  the  robber  Fancy  lurking 
within, — or  sometimes  only  maim  and  distort 
him!" 

Thomas  Gradgrind  will  end  by  mutilating  it 


202  CHARLES  DICKENS 

with  his  principles  of  utilitarianism  and  prac- 
ticality. The  application  which  he  makes  of 
it  in  his  own  family  has  lamentable  results. 
His  daughter,  Louise,  becoming  repressed  and 
disdainful,  marries  a  butor,  Bounderby;  she 
suffers  in  consequence,  and,  finding  no  protec- 
tion from  her  own  conscience,  ends  by  taking 
refuge  in  her  father's  house  in  order  to  escape 
the  seductions  of  another  man.  Accordingly, 
in  her  case,  Gradgrind's  method  of  education 
resulted  in  a  separation  by  consent,  to  that  gen- 
tleman's utter  horror.  In  the  case  of  his  son, 
Tom,  the  effects  are  still  more  serious.  The  lat- 
ter has  profited  by  his  lesson  ;  he  is  a  gambler, 
a  hypocrite,  and  an  egotist.  He  has  wasted  the 
money  which  his  sister  gave  him  ;  and  he  even 
robs  his  patron,  who  turns  out  to  be  his 
brother-in-law,  Bounderby,  while  suspicion 
falls  upon  a  factory  hand,  Stephen.  The  latter 
is  a  poor  unfortunate,  expressing  himself  with 
difficulty  and  unable  to  see  either  in  life  or  in 
the  laws  of  the  land  anything  else  than  a  mud- 
dle.   And,  in  point  of  fact,  how  should  he  un- 


THE  ART  OF  GOVERNMENT     203 

derstand  why  a  young  working  girl  whom  he 
had  married  at  the  outset  of  life  should  have 
deserted  him?  And,  when  he  discovered  that 
he  was  loved  by  another  woman,  how  should 
he  understand  that  it  was  impossible  for  him 
to  get  his  release  from  his  first  entanglement 
because  divorce  proceedings  cost  too  dearly? 
Yet  the  worthy  man  is  resigned  and  without 
revolt.  He  remains  to  the  last  the  type  of  per- 
fect workman.  When  a  strike  occurs  in  the 
factory  he  alone  sticks  to  his  task,  in  spite  of 
the  boycott  imposed  by  his  comrades.  And 
when  his  employer  summons  him  he  defends 
them,  because  his  sense  of  what  is  right  tells 
him  that  this  is  his  duty. 

All  this  is  very  fine  and  very  human,  with- 
out exaggeration  of  any  sort.  Such  intense 
gravity  dominates  the  subject  that  it  seems  to 
be  taken  out  of  the  order  of  fiction  to  which 
Dickens  had  previously  accustomed  us  ;  it  seems 
as  though  at  present  the  author  was  saying  to 
us:  ''Have  done  with  laughter!  Look,  reflect, 
and  think!" 


204  CHARLES  DICKENS 

Similarly,  in  Little  Dorrit,  a  work  of  consid- 
erable importance  which  appeared  in  1855,  and 
in  which  there  are  some  masterly  and  sharply 
drawn  characters,  such  as  Arthur  Clenham, 
Blandois,  and  Casby,  we  no  longer  find  him 
tracing  his  portraits  with  the  same  light- 
hearted  detachment,  the  same  irrepressible  or 
subtle  enjoyment;  he  strips  the  masks  from 
vanity  and  from  intrigue,  and  he  applies  red- 
hot  iron  to  social  plague  spots. 

Following  the  example  of  Carlyle,  he  con- 
demns Parliament  and  the  Parliamentarians. 
In  Little  Dorrit  his  tirade  against  the  Circum- 
locution Office  is  like  a  flaming  sword,  and  the 
Barnacles  are  held  up  to  the  scorn  not  only  of 
all  the  naturalists  of  political  and  social  life, 
but  also  of  the  anxious  crowd  of  citizens  de- 
frauded of  their  rights. 

As  a  clear-sighted  and  from  this  time  for- 
ward singularly  pessimistic  radical,  he  scourges 
the  aristocracy  of  politics  and  its  sterile  para- 
sitism, the  prejudices  of  the  nobility  and  the 
stagnant  apathy  of  the  people.     He  hopes  at 


THE  ART  OF  GOVERNMENT     205 

least  that  he  has  communicated  to  his  public 
some  part  of  the  utter  contempt  which  he  him- 
self feels  for  the  Houses  of  Parliament. 

Chapter  X  in  Little  Dorrit,  which  contains 
the  whole  theory  of  the  art  of  governing,  is  the 
utterance  of  a  modern  Voltaire  collaborating 
with  a  Bentham,  a  Swift,  or  a  Thackeray,  while 
his  smile  is  transformed  at  times  into  a  gnash- 
ing of  teeth. 

If  there  is  a  question  of  anything  to  be  done, 
how  go  to  work  in  order  not  to  do  it?  In 
order  not  to  do  it,  that  is  the  question!  Ac- 
cording to  Charles  Dickens,  the  House  of  Lords 
and  the  House  of  Commons  are  marvellously 
expert  in  solving  this  problem. 

According  to  this  ''jolly  good  fellow,"  who 
decidedly  made  a  mistake  in  becoming  a 
grumbler  after  his  fortieth  year,  the  speech 
from  the  throne  virtually  says  at  the  opening 
of  each  session,  "My  lords  and  gentlemen,  you 
have  a  considerable  stroke  of  work  to  do,  and 
you  will  please  to  retire  to  your  respective 
chambers  and  discuss  How  not  do  do  it."    And 


206  CHARLES  DICKENS 

at  the  close  of  each  session  the  speech  from  the 
throne  says  virtually,  ''My  lords  and  gentle- 
men, you  have  through  several  laborious 
months  been  considering  with  great  loyalty  and 
patriotism  How  not  to  do  it,  and  you  have 
found  out.  And  with  the  blessings  of  provi- 
dence upon  the  harvest  I  now  dismiss  you." 

But  are  we  not  even  here  in  the  presence  of 
the  real  Dickens?  Even  in  his  most  pathetic 
stories  his  facetiousness  suddenly  bursts  out  of 
bounds,  mighty  and  undisciplined.  And  the 
comedy  of  politics  is  by  no  means  the  smallest 
part  of  the  human  comedy. 

Without  such  excellent  intervention  how 
could  we  endure  the  sad  visits  of  little  Dorrit 
and  the  sinister  vision  of  the  prison  of  the 
Marshalsea?  In  spite  of  Dickens's  unquench- 
able good  spirits  we  are  no  longer  in  the  bright 
days  of  Mr.  Micawber  and  Mr.  Pickwick. 

Dickens  found  a  throng  of  fervent  and  faith- 
ful readers.  His  travels,  his  charities,  the 
necessities  of  what  he  called  his  public  life 
obliged  him  to  lead  a  very  costly  existence. 


THE  ART  OF  GOVERNMENT     207 

His  daughter,  Mamie,  has  paid  a  touching 
tribute  to  his  qualities  as  a  father,  his  unfaihng 
solicitude  for  his  children's  welfare. 

The  success  of  Little  Dorrit  and  of  his  peri- 
odical permitted  him  to  face  the  future  with 
some  security.  In  March,  1856,  he  purchased 
for  a  sum  amounting  to  about  nine  thousand 
dollars  Gad's  Hill,  the  dream  of  his  eager  and 
unhappy  childhood,  situated  in  the  suburbs  of 
Chatham,  overlooking  Rochester  and  its  melan- 
choly cemetery. 

We  will  try  to  visualise  him  at  Gad's  Hill, 
amid  the  charm  of  the  pretty  landscape  and  the 
pleasant  home  circle.  But  first  we  must  touch 
upon  one  of  the  most  delicate  points  in  the 
whole  course  of  this  biography  of  a  writer  who 
was  profoundly  instinctive  and  at  the  same 
time  profoundly  industrious.  And  it  is  hard  to 
handle  it  with  a  sufficiently  delicate  touch. 

In  1858  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Dickens  separated. 

Is  it  a  sufficient  explanation  to  say  that  Mrs. 
Dickens  refused  to  share  this  exile  in  the  midst 
of  green  fields  and  far  from  the  noise  of  cities? 


208  CHARLES  DICKENS 

Or  is  it  necessary  to  add,  according  to  a 
vague  and  prejudiced  paragraph  in  an  Amer- 
ican paper,  that  Dickens  made  a  singular  entry 
to  Gad's  Hill,  between  Miss  Georgina  Hogarth, 
who  was  destined  to  be  the  companion  of  his 
latter  years,  and  a  certain  young  American 
actress? 

We  have  no  need  either  of  imaginary  pre- 
texts or  of  ultra-fantastic  interpretations  in 
order  to  explain  what  one  of  his  most  recent 
English  biographers,  Mr.  A.  W.  Ward,  has 
called  the  open  secret  of  their  separation. 

In  his  conjugal  relations  Dickens  seems  to 
have  had  neither  the  tender  patience  of  David 
Copperfield  for  Dora,  nor  his  veneration  of 
Agnes.  But  perhaps,  on  the  other  hand,  Mrs. 
Dickens  was  lacking  in  the  happy  qualities  of 
an  Agnes! 

There  is  no  use  in  turning  to  the  faithful 
Forster  for  any  accurate  details  regarding  this 
divorce,  which  was  decisive,  final,  inexorable, 
absolute. 

Mr.  Chesterton  offers  an  explanation  with 


THE  ART  OF  GOVERNMENT     209 

which  we  may  very  well  rest  content.  This 
critic  is  a  daring  thinker,  abounding  in  courage 
and  subtlety,  and  supplied  no  doubt  with  suffi- 
cient cynicism  not  to  be  afraid  of  frankness. 

In  his  opinion  Dickens  suffered  from  a  sort 
of  nervous  egoism,  was  afflicted  to  a  morbid  de- 
gree with  irritability  and  exasperation  ;  he  con- 
siders him  as  a  mild  or  cruel  despot,  according 
as  he  was  in  good  or  bad  humour.  "A  mere 
silly  trick  of  temperament,"  he  says,  "did  every- 
thing that  the  blackest  misconduct  could  have 
done.  A  random  sensibility,  started  about  the 
shuffling  of  papers  or  the  shutting  of  a  window, 
ended  by  tearing  two  clean,  Christian  people 
from  each  other,  like  a  blast  of  bigamy  or  adul- 
tery." 

Who  could  doubt  the  reality  of  this  nervous- 
ness, after  seeing  him  give  way  to  his  mounte- 
bank eccentricities,  or  feel  as  keenly  as  though 
it  were  his  own  the  hideous  and  heart-breaking 
misery  of  those  disinherited  by  nature  or  by 
the  life  of  the  modern  city? 

One  of  his  secretaries,  who  took  down  in 


210  CHARLES  DICKENS 

shorthand  his  articles  for  All  the  Year  Round, 
has  told  how  he  would  pause  betw^een  two 
phrases,  to  stroke  his  hair  with  a  feverish  touch, 
and  then  go  to  look  at  himself  in  the  mirror. 

A  railway  accident,  in  which  he  escaped 
death  only  by  a  miracle,  was  destined,  a  few 
years  later,  in  1865,  to  complicate  his  condition, 
as  a  result  of  the  nervous  shock.  His  indomita- 
ble physical  and  intellectual  energy  was  pur- 
chased at  the  price  of  much  keen  suffering.  In 
this  regard  we  have  the  formal  testimony  of  his 
contemporaries,  notably  that  of  Harriet  Mar- 
tineau,  as  well  as  of  all  others  who  knew  him 
well. 

His  friends,  it  seems,  had  foreseen  the  sad 
outcome  of  his  married  life,  which  befell  in 
1858.  But  Charles  Dickens  was  a  sort  of  popu- 
lar hero,  friend  of  the  weak,  the  humble,  the 
deformed,  anointed  poet  of  the  joys  of  Christ- 
mas and  of  the  purity  of  the  British  home. 
People  used  to  stop  him  in  the  street;  they 
crowned  him  with  glory  and  with  benedictions. 
He  gave  to  the  whole  world  the  charity  of  his 


THE  ART  OF  GOVERNMENT     211 

pious  and  redeeming  stories.  His  tenderness  in- 
cited to  meditation  and  prayer. 

Now,  the  brutal  facts  of  the  case:  this  wife, 
who  had  been  ten  times  a  mother,  repudiated 
after  twenty  years,  amounted  to  a  public  scan- 
dal. Whatever  may  have  been  the  truth  re- 
garding the  mutual  wrongs,  the  private  griev- 
ances, the  individual  weaknesses  of  character, 
the  three  thousand  dollars  a  year  allowed  to 
Mrs.  Dickens  and  the  excessive  part  played  by 
Miss  Hogarth  in  the  household  management, 
the  whole  occurrence  remains  an  act  of  real 
cruelty,  irremediably  painful. 

Stung  by  the  echoes  of  incisive  comments 
and  the  clamours  of  calumny,  the  novelist  un- 
wisely broke  the  reserve  and  the  silence  which 
the  most  elemental  common  sense  ought  to 
have  dictated.  This  industrious  man,  so 
worthy  at  heart,  in  spite  of  his  exuberance  and 
prodigality,  in  spite  of  his  instinctive  fondness 
for  stage  settings,  and  for  a  naïve  and  pic- 
turesque vagabondage,  could  not  content  him- 
self with  merely  protesting  with  his  accustomed 


212  CHARLES  DICKENS 

vehemence  against  a  few  small  infamies.  He 
wrote  to  his  friend  and  ''right-hand  man/'  Ar- 
thur Smith,  a  letter  containing  needless  expla- 
nations. The  latter,  in  conformity  with  Dick- 
ens's desire,  committed  the  blunder  of  making 
this  letter  public  by  handing  it  over  to  an 
American  reporter,  who  was  fully  alive  to  the 
requirements  of  his  calling. 

To  his  various  vocations  of  fantastic  and  sen- 
sitive novelist,  mordant  satirist,  experienced 
editor  of  a  periodical  which  circulated  widely 
among  the  lower,  middle  and  upper  classes,  not- 
withstanding the  scant  mercy  which  he  showed 
the  latter,  Charles  Dickens  added  still  another 
profession,  dating  from  1853,  a  more  exhaus- 
tive and  far  more  lucrative  one,  that  of  lecturer, 
or,  to  be  more  exact,  of  public  reader. 

Like  his  amateur  theatricals,  his  public  read- 
ings, which  grew  out  of  private  readings  for  the 
entertainment  of  his  friends,  were  originally 
intended  to  aid  some  charitable  or  educational 
movement. 


THE  ART  OF  GOVERNMENT     213 

In  any  case  his  readings  were  veritable  per- 
formances. All  his  works  were  really  tragi- 
comedies, with  a  hundred  different  acts,  and  he 
made  them  live,  or  rather  relive,  before  a  pub- 
lic that  followed  attentively  these  thrilling  in- 
terpretations of  an  author  by  the  author  him- 
self. 

Thus  Dickens  abandoned  himself  feverishly 
to  the  delight  of  being  idolised  by  crowds  in- 
toxicated by  his  gestures,  his  mimicry,  and  his 
voice,  which,  in  spite  of  the  regrettable  absence 
of  the  phonograph,  must  have  founded  some 
valuable  traditions  in  regard  to  certain  ones  of 
his  favourite  characters. 

From  1858  onward — the  year  of  the  divorce — 
he  acted  his  books,  so  to  speak,  regardless  of 
the  opinion  of  Forster,  who  condemned  the  en- 
terprise as  little  in  keeping  with  his  dignity  as 
a  man  of  letters.  But  it  brought  him  in  from 
two  thousand  to  twenty-five  hundred  dollars 
a  week,  from  the  outset  of  his  first  series,  in 
Scotland. 

It  is  easy  to  imagine  how  the  business  man- 


214  CHARLES  DICKENS 

agers,  the  cleverest  theatrical  promoters,  be- 
sieged him  with  offers  !  And  in  consequence  we 
see  Charles  Dickens  engaged  as  a  star  attrac- 
tion for  long  tours  with  contracts  at  two  and 
three  hundred  dollars  a  night.  From  city  to 
city,  from  London  to  Liverpool,  and  Glasgow 
and  Leicester,  throughout  the  length  and 
breadth  of  Great  Britain,  he  called  forth  tears 
and  laughter  by  his  readings,  just  as  he  had 
formerly  called  forth  tears  and  laughter  by  his 
writings. 

Indefatigably,  despite  the  travelling,  despite 
the  shock  caused  by  the  railway  accident  which 
left  him  for  a  time  shaken  and  trembling,  in 
spite  even  of  the  chronic  affection  of  the  heart 
which  was  destined  eventually  to  cause  his 
death,  he  continued  to  repeat  his  various  rôles, 
into  which  he  flung  himself  w^ith  the  prodigal 
zeal  of  a  child,  of  an  actor  avid  of  applause, 
or  of  a  great  and  emotional  genius. 

Nothing  stopped  him,  neither  hemorrhages 
nor  secret  sufferings.  Was  he  driven  by  neces- 
sity?   He  was  still  burdened  by  all  the  cares 


THE  ART  OF  GOVERNMENT     215 

of  his  family.  Or  was  it  cupidity?  He  knew 
the  value  of  money,  and  he  used  it  for  the  bene- 
fit of  others  as  well  as  for  himself. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  continued  to  exercise 
his  profession  of  universal  entertainer  chiefly 
from  a  confused  desire  to  remain  in  the  full  en- 
joyment of  chimerical  youth,  and  of  the  faith 
which  he  had  possessed  in  the  springtime  of 
life,  despite  the  melancholy  weariness  of  au- 
tumn time  and  of  dead  dreams  scattered  like 
withered  leaves. 

And,  besides,  he  was  desirous  of  achieving 
complete  independence  so  that  he  mùght  finish 
his  allotted  task  on  earth  in  peace. 

Accordingly,  he  thought  quite  seriously  of 
undertaking  a  series  of  readings  in  Australia, 
where  one  of  his  sons  was  living.  Yet  he  had 
no  need  of  becoming  a  prospector  for  gold,  for 
was  he  not  himself  a  sorcerer  who  could  conjure 
up  a  cloud  of  golden  illusion  to  hover  over  the 
sombre  drama  of  life? 

Meanwhile  he  sailed  for  the  United  States  to- 
wards the  close  of  the  year  1867,  accompanied 


216  CHARLES  DICKENS 

by  George  Dolly,  who  has  consecrated  to  hhn 
a  volume  of  touching  and  curious  memories, 
and  who  shows  him  to  us  dancing  to  the  music 
of  bagpipes  to  entertain  his  companions,  in 
spite  of  his  own  frail  physique.  The  anger  and 
indignation  of  Americans  were  no  longer  any- 
thing but  a  vague  and  far-off  memory.  The 
free  and  independent  writer  and  the  free  and 
independent  republic  had  only  to  fall  into  each 
other's  arms. 

And,  in  point  of  fact,  Charles  Dickens  was 
borne  aloft  to  the  skies  upon  colossal  piles  of 
dollars.  When  Americans  espouse  the  cause  of 
arts  and  letters  they  adopt  no  halfway  meas- 
ures. Dickens  had  had  flamboyant  billboards 
prepared,  more  dazzling  than  his  own  pale 
waistcoats  and  sensational  neckties.  But  it 
soon  proved  that  a  loud  beating  of  drums  was 
unnecessary. 

It  would  have  been  most  ungracious  on  the 
part  of  Dickens  not  to  have  recognised  the  great 
progress  which  had  taken  place  in  the  United 
States.    Houses  were  sold  out  in  advance,  and 


THE  ART  OF  GOVERNMENT     217 

checks  and  bank  notes  showered  in.  He  gave 
his  readings  in  theatres  and  clubs  and  churches. 
His  audiences  never  wearied  of  the  mighty- 
deeds  of  Mr.  Pickwick  and  the  sorrows  of  Little 
Dorrit  any  more  than  they  did  of  Mr.  Dombey 
and  the  Christmas  Carol.  The  author  could 
easily  console  himself  for  having  been  so  long 
defrauded  of  his  copyright.  Inimitable  reader 
that  he  was,  he  cleared  a  profit  somewhere  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  a  hundred  thousand  dol- 
lars during  this  single  visit  of  four  or  five 
months. 

In  going  from  place  to  place  he  suffered  from 
the  cold — and,  it  might  be  added,  from  heat 
also,  for  he  narrowly  escaped  with  his  life  from 
two  conflagrations.  Here  and  there,  in  the 
newspapers,  a  few  hostile  comments  occurred; 
but  no  less  a  personage  than  President  John- 
son himself  took  pains  to  assure  Dickens  of  the 
esteem  and  admiration  which  he  shared,  not 
only  with  the  select  few,  but  with  the  great 
general  public  of  the  new  world. 

At  the  close  of  enthusiastic  dinners  and  re- 


218  CHARLES  DICKENS 

ceptions,  and  after  leaving  the  footlights  or  the 
private  drawing-rooms,  Dickens  found  himself 
fighting  a  hard  fight  against  bronchitis  and 
fainting  fits.  The  favourite  beverage  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains,  composed  of  snow,  brandy 
and  rum,  in  no  wise  diminished  his  sufferings 
or  his  lameness. 

Who  knows  whether,  in  the  midst  of  this  very 
material  and  almost  heroic  glory,  he  did  not 
sometimes  wish,  in  his  weariness,  that  he  was 
dreaming  beside  the  chimney  corner  in  the  com- 
parative peace  of  his  own  home,  watching  the 
embers  whiten  and  die  out,  and  that  he  might, 
in  this  way,  close  his  existence  like  the  closing 
pages  of  his  novel,  Hard  Times  f 


CHAPTER   VIII 

CHARLES    DICKENS,    ESQ. 

LAND — THE  MAGICIAN  IN  SOLITUDE — THE 
TOMB  OF  A  BIRD — AFTER  THE  CENTENARY, 
THE  APOTHEOSIS 

NOT  far  from  Falstaff's  inn  and  from  the 
road  to  Dover,  which  is  traversed  by  mot- 
ley beggars  and  shabby  and  threadbare  gentle- 
men who  seem  to  have  stepped  straight  out  of 
one  of  Charles  Dickens's  own  novels,  we  reach 
his  favourite  retreat.  Gad's  Hill. 

The  reveries  of  a  solitary  pedestrian  wander 
from  Gad's  Hill  over  landscapes  brushed  in  by 
nature  after  the  manner  of  Turner,  and  attrac- 
tive woodlands  known  as  Cobham  Woods; 
there,  in  the  near  distance,  flows  the  Medway, 
and,  further  off,  the  proud  Thames.  The  castle 
and  cathedral  of  Rochester,  in  the  distance,  add 
their  darker  note  to  the  sombre  verdure  and  the 
horizon  of  grey  sky  shading  to  violet. 
219 


220  CHARLES  DICKENS 

Thanks  to  the  obligingness  of  a  French  serv- 
ing maid,  much  like  that  Ursule  with  whom  her 
master  used  to  joke  so  amicably,  we  are  enabled 
to  proceed  all  the  way  to  the  red  brick  house 
itself,  with  its  triple  windows  opening  upon 
opaque  masses  of  green. 

From  all  the  trees  of  various  species  arise  the 
songs  of  birds,  like  hymns  to  the  beauty  and 
magnificence  of  created  nature.  But  the  most 
intelligent  of  all  these  birds  was  Dick,  the  nov- 
elist's favourite  pet  and  as  dear  to  him  as  Grip 
had  formerly  been.  After  having  long  glorified 
the  mysteries  of  nature,  its  little  ephemeral 
voice  became  extinct  after  one  last  chill.  Dick- 
ens erected  a  little  tombstone  with  an  epitaph 
over  the  grave,  which  was  kept  fresh  and  flow- 
ering. 

Let  us  use  a  certain  amount  of  discretion  in 
approaching  the  famous  writer.  On  one  occa- 
sion a  visitor  who  had  succeeded  in  gaining  ad- 
mission delivered  himself  of  the  following 
profitless  discourse: 

''Your   glory   and   the   universal   sympathy 


AT  GAD'S  HILL  221 

which  you  inspire  probably  expose  you  to  in- 
numerable importunities.  Your  doors  must  be 
constantly  besieged.  You  doubtless  receive 
daily  visits  from  princes,  scientists,  statesmen, 
authors,  artists,  and  even  fools.'' 

"Yes!  Even  fools,  fools,  fools!"  vociferated 
Dickens.  "They  are  the  only  people  whom  I 
find  amusing!"  And  he  brusquely  ushered  out 
his  visitor,  who  was  stupefied  by  such  a  recep- 
tion and  such  gesticulation. 

Let  us  avoid  a  similar  fate  in  order  that  our 
visit  may  be  more  profitable.  And  let  us  make 
use  of  a  few  enlightening  details  furnished  by 
M.  Maurice  Clare. 

He  tells  us  that  Dickens  was  a  man  of 
medium  height — to  be  more  explicit,  he  is  said 
to  have  measured  five  feet  five  inches — with  a 
brown  mustache  and  tufted  beard,  and  his  hair 
brushed  back  from  his  forehead  after  the  man- 
ner shown  in  the  portrait  by  Frith.  His  face 
had  certain  metallic  gleams  in  it.  It  was  a  face 
of  steel,  to  borrow  the  expression  used  by  Mrs. 
Carlyle. 


222  CHARLES  DICKENS 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  while  he  possessed  a 
unique  power  of  impressionability,  it  was  not 
equal  to  his  power  of  endurance.  A  mere  noth- 
ing seemed  to  touch  and  hurt  him.  And  yet 
nothing  seemed  able  to  undermine  his  strength, 
his  powers  of  resistance.  He  remained  upon 
his  feet  until  the  very  end. 

Dickens  used  to  delight  to  come  out  of  doors 
into  his  garden  and  inspect  his  geraniums,  for 
he  adored  exuberant  colours,  just  as  he  did  soft, 
shimmering  fabrics  and  all  resplendent  things. 
He  would  stop  to  inhale  the  fragrance  of  his 
syringas  and  lose  himself  in  contemplation  of 
his  two  majestic  cedars.  His  soul  sought  com- 
munion with  that  all-pervasive  and  infinite  soul 
of  nature.  And  his  eyes  glistened  at  sight  of  all 
the  marvellous  splendour  of  the  summer  land- 
scape. 

He  would  then  cross  the  highway  without 
leaving  his  own  property — for  he  crossed  under- 
neath it.  There  was  a  tunnel  which  led  him, 
safe-guarded  from  unwelcome  intrusion,  to 
what  he  called  his  wilderness,  where,  in  the 


AT  GAD^S  HILL  223 

midst  of  a  miniature  forest  of  exotic  plants, 
shrubs,  flowers  and  foliage,  was  the  Swiss  chalet 
which  had  been  sent  by  Fechter  from  Paris. 

Here,  on  fair  days,  w^as  his  retreat.  No  less 
than  five  mirrors  hung  in  the  chalet,  reflecting 
the  flowers  and  butterflies,  the  wide  stretching 
fields  and  close-trimmed  hedges,  the  woods  and 
the  streams. 

Before  setting  to  work  this  man,  who,  in 
spite  of  his  excitability  and  his  excesses  of  de- 
jection and  of  rage  in  the  presence  of  bereave- 
ment or  oppression,  was  minutely  methodical, 
must  needs  arrange  before  him  all  his  cherished 
familiar  little  objects  which  had  come  to  be  an 
essential  part  of  his  boisterous  and  extravagant 
life.  They  included  a  paper  cutter  of  consid- 
erable dimensions,  a  group  of  dogs,  frogs  fight- 
ing a  duel,  and  a  rabbit  sitting  on  a  golden  leaf. 
Then  Charles  Dickens  would  begin  to  work,  and 
from  that  moment  he  lived  in  an  enchanted 
world. 

After  the  Tale  of  Two  Cities,  a  novel  of  rare 
quality,  which  appeared  in  1859  and  in  which 


224  CHARLES  DICKENS 

he  emulated  Carlyle's  attempt  to  explain  the 
French  revolution  on  the  ground  of  poverty, 
hunger  and  class  antagonism,  he  published 
Great  Expectations  and  the  Uncommercial 
Traveller.  In  these  volumes  he  kept  up  to  the 
height  of  his  own  standard,  but  with  a  certain 
colder  gravity  and  an  impressive  authority  in 
the  profound  analysis  that  he  makes  of  the 
moral  hesitations  of  Pip. 

Here  the  interest  no  longer  depends  upon  the 
intricacy  of  the  plot,  which  is  reduced  to  the 
slightest  sort  of  connecting  thread.  But  the 
hero  of  Great  Expectations,  at  war  with  his 
own  emotions,  is  all  the  more  poignant  and 
true.  At  first,  while  still  a  lad,  he  is  hesitating 
between  the  simplicity  of  a  blacksmith's  life 
and  the  luxurious  instincts  awakened  in  him  by 
a  rich  old  maid  who  is  pleased  to  give  him  hos- 
pitality. Later  on,  when  a  young  man,  he 
comes  into  possession  of  property,  the  source 
of  which  he  does  not  know.  Here  he  is  wealthy  ! 
Can  you  imagine  what  will  happen  to  an  un- 
couth young  fellow  who  suddenly  finds  himself 


AT  GAD'S  HILL  225 

in  possession  of  a  fortune?  A  fortune?  Yes, 
and  all  the  ills  which  follow  in  its  wake!  And 
defects  of  character  besides!  Pip  soon  shows 
that  he  has  forgotten  all  that  he  owes  to  the 
blacksmith,  Joe  Gargery,  who  brought  him  up, 
ingrate  that  he  is  !  But  before  long  remorse  en- 
ters his  heart,  for  at  bottom  he  has  an  honest 
soul.  Ill  luck — or  should  we  not  rather  say 
destiny? — is  about  to  restore  him  to  himself. 
All  of  Pip's  wealth  leaves  him  just  as  it  came: 
what  he  thought  that  he  owed  to  the  munifi- 
cence of  the  rich  old  maid  was  money  stolen  by 
an  escaped  convict  whom  he  had  formerly 
aided.  With  the  convict  safely  back  in  jail, 
Pip  becomes  the  Pip  of  former  days,  and  he 
takes  up  his  old  life  like  a  sensible  lad,  recov- 
ering at  the  same  time  his  mental  equilibrium 
through  the  healthful  discipline  of  toil. 

Estella  and  Joe  Gargery  take  their  respective 
places  side  by  side  with  Pip  in  the  bright 
and  sombre  gallery  of  Dickens's  characters,  just 
as  Bradley  Headstone,  in  Our  Mutual  Friend  y 


226  CHARLES  DICKENS 

takes  his  between  Lizzie  Hexham  and  Eugene 
Wr  ay  burn. 

On  his  return  Dickens  resumed  his  former 
occupations,  the  editing  of  his  periodical,  and 
in  spite  of  his  physical  weakness  a  new  series 
of  readings,  in  which  he  continued  to  exhibit 
alternately  his  powers  of  humour  and  pathos, 
principally  in  a  fragment  taken  from  Oliver 
Twist.  In  1869  and  1870  he  gave  his  farewell 
reading,  not  without  a  certain  melancholy.  He 
had  lost  his  brother,  Frederick,  with  whom  he 
had  frequently  shared  his  profits.  One  of  his 
sons  had  died  in  India  and  another  was  living 
a  very  long  way  off.  But  Mamie,  his  beloved 
and  cherished  daughter,  remained  to  him.  Yet 
what  consolation  could  be  found  for  all  the  sor- 
rows of  earth,  aside  from  the  contemplation  of 
nature  and  the  privilege  of  writing  books  which 
to  the  very  end  keep  up  the  illusion  of  life? 

Abandoning  his  London  residence  in  Hyde 
Park  Place,  Dickens  took  refuge  at  Gad's  Hill, 
where  he  passed  his  mornings  in  the  solitude  of 
the  Swiss  chalet,  covering  page  after  page  with 


AT  GAD'S  HILL  227 

his  fine,  close  writing,  overladen  with  correc- 
tions and  erasures.  These  pages  were  to  give 
a  final  proof  of  his  creative  genius,  for  they  con- 
stituted the  utterly  new  manner  of  his  Mystery 
of  Edwin  Drood.  What  delightful  touches  we 
have  in  the  personage  of  Mr.  Sapsea,  and  in  the 
vigorously  drawn  portraits  of  Crisparkle  and 
Honeythunder  !  And  what  lavish  energy  went 
into  the  grey  and  sombre  tones  of  the  pictures 
that  unfold  this  enigmatic  history,  the  key  to 
which  is  missing  since  it  remained  unfinished. 
It  is  true  that  a  certain  American  claimed  that 
Dickens's  spirit  dictated  the  second  part  of  the 
book  to  him  in  1873,  but  this  is  small  consola- 
tion. 

After  the  daily  session  of  work,  which  usually 
lasted  three  hours,  Dickens  returned  leisurely 
to  the  house  and  felt  in  the  letter  box,  which 
was  situated  in  the  main  hall,  hung  with  pic- 
tures by  Hogarth. 

Then  the  novelist  would  go  the  rounds  of  his 
domain.  He  felt  the  need  of  seeing  that  every- 
thing was  in  its  appointed  place  and  in  perfect 


228  CHARLES  DICKENS 

order,  not  only  in  the  drawing-room,  the  li- 
brary, the  bed  chambers,  where  perfect  comfort 
held  sway  among  sofas  and  rocking  chairs,  but 
also  in  the  kitchen,  in  the  garden.  His  mag- 
nificent St.  Bernard,  Linda,  often  accompanied 
him,  and  would  pause  when  he  paused.  He 
lingered  over  his  flower  bed,  in  which  the  dif- 
ferent colourings  mingled  and  blended.  Dick- 
ens, the  magician,  felt  the  need  of  resting  his 
eyes  from  time  to  time  on  this  fairy-land  radi- 
ance, in  order  to  forget  the  sombre  pictures  of 
his  own  dramas. 

At  times  the  colour  schemes  of  these  flower 
beds  were  as  strange  and  eccentric  as  the  ad- 
ventures of  his  heroes  and  even  as  life  itself. 

No  servants  were  to  be  seen  at  Gad's  Hill 
excepting  at  meal  time.  Breakfast  took  place 
at  nine  o'clock,  and  was  a  joyous  family  re- 
union. In  the  neighbourhood  of  two  o'clock 
luncheon  was  served,  and  there  were  always  a 
few  pleasant  guests,  eager  to  amuse  or  enrich 
themselves  by  contact  with  a  man  of  such  warm 
cordiality,  such  unforeseen  eloquence,  so  be- 


4T  GAD'S  HILL  229 

wilderingly  fertile  in  jokes  and  so  likely  to  burst 
forth  with  sudden  explosions  of  impatience  and 
anxiety.  Among  these  guests  should  be  men- 
tioned as  frequent  visitors  at  various  different 
periods:  the  artist,  Stone;  the  novelist,  Wilkie 
Collins;  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Carlyle,  Albert  Smith, 
James  White,  and  his  biographer,  Forster. 

Hans  Christian  Andersen  once  said,  "Take 
all  that  is  best  in  the  works  of  Charles  Dickens, 
shape  it  into  the  image  of  a  man,  and  you  will 
have  Dickens  himself.'' 

Excellent,  admirable  talker  though  he  was, 
he  was  an  equally  good  listener,  and  singularly 
sympathetic.  He  seemed,  however,  to  avoid 
controversies,  he  never  talked  of  his  own  work, 
he  exerted  himself  above  all  to  be  agreeable  and 
to  amuse.  Among  his  intimate  friends  he  was 
a  marvellous  companion.  It  was  nothing  un- 
usual, within  the  strictly  home  circle,  for  this 
dignified,  elderly  gentleman,  whom  an  outsider 
might  have  mistaken  for  a  sea  captain  off  duty, 
taking  a  sort  of  Sunday  rest,  to  become  once 
again  the  irrepressible  Dickens  of  earlier  days. 


230  CHARLES  DICKENS 

They  lived  well  at  Gad's  Hill,  although,  in  his 
later  years,  the  novelist  himself  was  contented 
with  bread,  fruit  and  a  glass  of  beer.  But  the 
table  was  always  covered  with  flowers,  and 
heaping  platters  were  passed  around. 

Sports  were  held  in  honour,  although  the 
master  of  the  house,  weary  and  somewhat  lame, 
preferred  the  simpler  exercise  of  walking,  and 
was  glad  to  slip  away  and  ramble  across  coun- 
try. 

^'I  am  incapable  of  remaining  in  any  one 
place,"  he  said  to  Forster.  "If  I  could  not  walk 
fast  and  far,  I  should  explode!" 

Nevertheless,  in  the  midst  of  the  tenantry, 
who  adored  him  and  hushed  their  noise  so  that 
he  might  have  the  tranquillity  that  was  fa- 
vourable for  the  ripening  of  his  thoughts,  he 
used  to  preside  over  their  games,  and  would 
fling  open  the  gates  of  his  park  to  the  general 
public,  among  whom  certain  admirers  who  had 
come  from  afar  were  often  glad  to  slip  in  un- 
known. 

Among  other  amusements  at  Gad's  Hill  ball 


AT  GAD'S  HILL  231 

and  bowls  were  played  upon  the  lawn;  and 
happy  hours  were  passed  m  the  billiard  room, 
which  was  often  a  gathering  place  in  the  eve- 
ning. 

Dickens  was  usually  glad  to  join  in  the  chil- 
dren's games,  though  at  times  he  preferred 
to  shut  himself  up  in  the  seclusion  of  his 
Swiss  chalet.  When  evening  fell  he  would 
light  a  cigar  and  start  in  to  make  an  inspection 
of  his  domain.  He  retired  at  the  hour  pre- 
scribed to  go  to  rest.  'To  rest!"  he  wrote  with 
a  touch  of  irony.  "There  is  no  such  thing  in 
life  for  a  good  many  people!"  He  himself 
hardly  ever  rested. 

In  June,  1870,  after  his  last  readings  and  the 
renewal  of  his  favourable  contracts  with  Chap- 
man &  Hall,  Dickens  found  himself  back  at 
Gad's  Hill.  Beneficent  summer  smiled  upon  his 
own  troubled  and  desolate  autumn. 

Dickens  was  ill.  He  was  unwilling  to  believe 
altogether  in  his  illness,  but  it  refused  to  forget 
him,  and  he  continued  to  fail.  Nevertheless, 
he  busied  himself,  together  with  his  daughter 


232  CHARLES  DICKENS 

Catherine,  with  supervising  the  building  of  a 
conservatory  opening  out  of  his  library.  He 
worked  over  it  with  obstinate  persistence.  Sud- 
denly he  was  stricken  down  with  an  attack  of 
paralysis.  His  sister-in-law,  Georgina  Hogarth, 
attended  him  in  his  last  moments. 

Dickens  had  always  wished  to  die  at  a  single 
stroke,  felled  like  a  mighty  tree  by  a  thunder- 
bolt. And  this  was  the  way  that  he  did  fall, 
never  to  rise  again,  in  the  midst  of  the  per- 
formance of  his  daily  tasks.  Nature  had  been 
indulgent  in  granting  this  sudden  end  to  one 
who  had  throughout  his  life  been  in  a  certain 
sense  a  force  of  nature. 

Dickens  died  June  9th,  1870.  On  the  14th  of 
June  he  was  buried  without  pomp  at  West- 
minster. Dr.  Jowett  delivered  his  panegyric  in 
the  midst  of  that  solemn  abbey.  The  queen  ex- 
pressed regret  at  his  demise.  And  all  England 
wept. 

At  the  doors  of  one  of  the  London  theatres 
a  little  girl,  all  in  rags,  inquired  of  the  passers- 
by: 


AT  GAD'S  HILL  233 

"Is  it  true  that  Dickens  is  dead?  And  is 
Santa  Claus  going  to  die  next?" 

She  did  not  understand  that  Dickens  had 
only  entered  upon  a  long  exile,  and  that  never- 
theless he  would  still  dwell  among  us  all  as  a 
fraternal  consolation  and  an  eternal  hope. 

Yes,  Dickens  survives.  He  is  great  among 
the  greatest,  in  spite  of  the  perfection  of  some 
and  the  sovereign  ability  and  refinement  of 
others.  His  recent  centenary  showed  how  many 
echoes  he  still  awoke  in  English  hearts  and 
among  all  those  who  search  in  books  for  the  joy, 
the  pride  and  the  sadness  of  life. 

He  divided  his  estate. among  his  wife,  his 
children  and  Georgina  Hogarth.  Forster  was 
appointed  executor  of  his  will.  The  copyright 
interests  were  naturally  greatly  divided.  The 
English  laws  could  protect  them  only  for  a 
comparatively  short  time. 

Accordingly  it  is  scarcely  surprising,  although 
painfully  sad,  to  read  the  following  letter  ad- 
dressed by  one  of  Charles  Dickens's  grand- 


234  CHARLES  DICKENS 

daughters  to  the  Committee  on  the  Centenary 
Celebration,  in  December,  1911: 

"My  father  died  fifteen  years  ago,  at  the  age 
of  fifty-nine  years.  The  printing-house  which 
he  had  founded  had  not  been  a  success,  and  at 
his  death  he  left  his  wife  and  his  five  unmarried 
daughters  penniless.  My  mother  obtained  a 
pension  of  one  hundred  pounds  from  the  gov- 
ernment, and  when  she  died  that  pension  con- 
tinued to  be  paid,  divided  into  four  parts 
among  my  four  sisters,  who  received  twenty-five 
pounds  apiece.  Two  of  these  four  sisters,  whose 
health  is  frail,  earn  a  meagre  pittance,  one  as 
teacher  in  a  public  school,  the  other  as  house- 
keeper in  a  home  for  Hindu  children;  the 
third  is  out  of  work,  and  has  nothing  to  live 
upon  except  her  pension;  the  fourth  has  an 
office  position.  As  for  myself,  who  am  sup- 
posed to  have  been  successful,  I  have  been  for 
twenty  years  at  the  head  of  a  copying  bureau. 
I  have  worked  so  hard  that  twice  already  I  have 
had  serious  attacks  of  nervous  prostration,  and 
nothing  could  restore  me  to  health  short  of  six 


AT  GAD'S  HILL  235 

months  of  absolute  repose.  Not  one  of  us  has 
been  able  to  put  aside  a  penny  of  savings.  So 
it  is  quite  evident  that  our  condition  borders 
upon  indigence.  I  am  absolutely  certain  that, 
if  our  grandfather  were  still  alive,  he  could  not 
disapprove  of  this  confession  of  poverty  that  is 
forced  from  us."  Happily,  the  initiative  of 
Lord  Alverstone  prevented  this  appeal  from  re- 
maining without  response. 

If  Pascal  has  established  in  an  impressive 
manner  his  theory  of  the  greatness  and  the  low- 
liness of  human  beings  in  the  order  of  crea- 
tion, Charles  Dickens,  without  rising  to  the 
dignity  of  a  system,  and  simply  by  his  ardent 
contemplation  of  people  and  of  things,  has 
made  us  see  that  there  is  just  as  wide  a  differ- 
ence between  big  souls  and  little  souls  among 
the  lowly  as  among  the  lords  of  the  earth. 

A  human  being  is  a  singular  mixture  of  the 
splendid  and  the  atrocious;  good  and  evil  are 
not  easily  distinguished  behind  the  habitual 
outward  appearance,  behind  the  grimace  and 
the  vacant  stare  which  only  too  often  hide  from 


236  CHARLES  DICKENS 

the  simple  spectator  the  obscure  and  impene- 
trable traits  of  character. 

There  is  only  one  other  thing  in  Dickens 
which  surprises  us  to  an  equal  extent  with  his 
bewildering  hilarity,  and  that  is  his  luminous 
sagacity.  He  has  shown  us  that  the  splendour 
of  the  soul,  its  pure  serenity  and  unsullied  deli- 
cacy of  sentiments  may  dwell  within  physical 
ugliness,  deformity,  outward  coarseness,  the 
immaturity  of  childhood,  and  even  poverty  ! 

We  readily  forgive  people  for  being  poor,  if 
they  are  either  alarming  or  comical.  Dickens 
has  chosen  to  show  us  types  of  this  sort,  and 
with  an  astonishing  clear-sightedness.  He  has 
constantly  entertained  us,  in  order  constantly 
to  point  out  and  make  us  understand  the  fla- 
grant injustice  of  the  conditions  and  institu- 
tions here  upon  earth. 

The  spectacles  afforded  by  his  marvellous 
magic  lantern  are  innumerable  and  inexorable. 
Thanks  to  him,  we  participate  in  the  paradise 
and  the  inferno  which  exist  side  by  side  in  his 


AT  GAD'S  HILL  237 

great  English  city,  and,  for  that  matter,  ahnost 
everywhere  in  the  world. 

We  need  not  trouble  ourselves  too  far  as  to 
errors,  vulgarities,  conventions  and  blunders. 
Quintilian  once  said  that  Homer  himself  some- 
times nodded.  It  might  even  have  happened 
that  he  nodded  very  often;  nevertheless  he 
would  still  be  Homer. 

After  the  Odyssey  of  the  immortal  Pickwick, 
Dickens  has  left  us  an  entire  Iliad  of  heroes, 
British  all  of  them,  but  human  none  the  less. 

When  we  have  come  to  know  them,  we  can 
no  more  spare  them  than  we  could  the  heroes 
of  Shakespeare,  or  Molière,  or  Balzac. 

Charles  Dickens  is  forever  sacred  to  us, 
doubly  sacred,  because  he  remains  so  near  to  us, 
in  his  small  and  at  the  same  time  colossal  uni- 
verse, brilliant  yet  lugubrious,  sumptuous  yet 
morose,  with  its  double  radiance  of  immortal 
Art  and  immortal  Kindliness. 


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